24 / SEEDWORLD.COM OCTOBER 2018 OCCASIONALLY, AFTER I send a results report out to one of our custom- ers, I will receive a response back indicat- ing that the recipient doesn’t feel our test results accurately reflect the quality of the seed lot that they produced. Routinely my first response is, “How was the sample that you submitted obtained?” If proper sampling techniques were not followed and the seed sample does not reflect the bulk or bagged seed lot, then the QA test results are meaningless! When you do not accurately sample your seed, you are potentially misrepre- senting the quality of the lot and could be violating your customers’ trust. By only grabbing seed from the top of the bag, you are not getting a representative sample of what is in the entire bag. It is crucial for seed samplers to collect a sample that accurately represents the entire seed lot. Both the AOSA Rules and the AOSCA Handbook specify how many subsamples are needed for various crops and con- tainer sizes. Every seed sampler should follow these guidelines. When a 2-pound sample is tested to represent several thousand pounds of seed, even small sampling errors can seriously distort the validity of test results. There are established guidelines to indi- cate how many samples are needed. If you just reach in and take a handful of seed from the top of each container, you are not getting a representative sample. You may have sampled the right number of containers, but the samples Seed Sampling: The First Step in Seed Testing Success NICOLETTE RUSCH EUROFINS BIODIAGNOSTICS SST LAB MANAGER NicoletteRusch@eurofinsUS.com • eurofinsus.com/biodiagnostics are still not representative of the entire seed lot. A phenomenon can occur during storage or movement of seed where lightweight seed, oddly shaped seed or seeds with differences in mois- ture content can cause differential set- tling of seed in bags or bulk containers. Grass seed mixtures are especially prone to segregation during handling. Heavier and larger seeds can segregate from lighter, smaller seeds. Thus, it’s important for seed samplers to draw from the full width of the container. For a true picture of your seed qual- ity, remember that proper seed sampling is the first step in an accurate estimate of your seed quality. THE COURT OF JUSTICE of the European Union on July 25 decided that organisms obtained by mutagenesis, including CRISPR and other gene edit- ing techniques, are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and are, in principle, subject to the same EU regulatory bur- dens as transgenic crops. The effects of this EU court decision will likely not be limited to Europe, but may be felt by farmers and independent seed companies here in the United States. Independent seed companies have long searched for sources of genetics and traits beyond the few multinational companies that out-license today. The U.S. market has mainly been driven to this consolidated state because of the high regulatory costs and burdens for GMO approval around the world. These approvals are required to keep key export markets open for grain produced from GMO seed. There’s a lot of promise with gene- edited products and technologies because they are non-GMO tech- niques. Gene editing does not incorpo- rate foreign DNA into the final product, which means one can get to the same point with traditional plant breeding as with gene editing. The cost to develop traits and genetics with gene editing is also much less expensive than GMO techniques and thus more accessible to more companies. There was a lot of hope that these products would be regulated the same way as traditionally bred plants and would lower the barriers to commercialization around the world. Unfortunately, the Court of Justice decision puts gene-edited products in the same regulatory bucket as their GMO counterparts. The disappointment for independ- ent companies is that this decision will EU Court’s Decision Could Limit Seed Licensing Options for U.S. Companies JIM SCHWEIGERT GRO ALLIANCE PRESIDENT @jim_schweigert • jim.schweigert@groalliance.com • GroAlliance.com continue to constrict the market of companies that can bring gene-edited technologies to a commercial state. Without those regulatory burdens, hun- dreds of seed companies around the world could continue the work they’re doing with gene editing and have a predictable path to commercialization. The way GMO products are approved for import approval around the world makes it very complicated and cumber- some. Smaller companies don’t have the resources to overcome those obstacles. GMO traits, such as Enlist and Duracade, have been waiting com- mercialization for a number of years because of these regulations. Gene- edited products may face this same fate. In this case, a decision made in Europe affects not only European farm- ers’ access to technology but could limit the competitive licensing environment for independent U.S. seed companies.