How it works

From the field to the seed rack, every lot gets tested first.

Before seed reaches a farmer's planter or the rack at your garden store, a sample of it comes through a lab like ours. Here's the journey.

01 · Gather
Harvested and cleaned

Seed companies and growers harvest a crop, clean it, and bag it as a seed lot. A small sample is drawn to stand in for the whole lot.
02 · Send
Mailed to the lab

The sample goes in an envelope to P.O. Box 132, Decatur, with the kind of seed and the tests it needs.
03 · Test
Tested by the rules

Registered seed technologists run purity, germination, and TZ tests to AOSA, ISTA, or Canadian rules. Purity and TZ in one day.
04 · Label
The results go on the tag

Seed laws require the lab's numbers on the label: what's in the bag, how much will grow, and when it was tested.
05 · Sell
To the farm, or to you

The labeled seed ships to farmers and to the store where you pick up a packet. The tag tells you what you're planting.

Step 03, up close

Three tests, three answers.

Every sample can get one or all of these. Here's what happens at the bench.

Purity

What's really in the bag?

One-day service

At the bench: An analyst weighs out a working sample and sorts it, seed by seed, into four parts: pure seed, other crop seed, weed seed, and inert matter like chaff, soil, and broken seed.
What you get: The share of each part by weight, ready for the label, plus any weed seeds named so problem weeds are caught before they're planted.

Germination

How much of it will grow?

Days to weeks, by species

At the bench: Replicates of counted seeds are set on moist paper or sand and grown at the temperature and light the rules call for. Analysts count the seedlings at set times, sorting normal seedlings from abnormal ones, dead seed, and hard or dormant seed.
What you get: The germination percentage for the tag. The test runs as long as the rules set for that species, from several days for fast crops to about four weeks for slow ones.

Tetrazolium (TZ)

Is it still alive?

One-day service

At the bench: Seeds are soaked, cut open to show the embryo, and bathed in a tetrazolium solution. Living tissue turns red; dead tissue stays pale. An analyst reads the staining pattern on each seed.
What you get: A fast estimate of how many seeds are alive, including dormant seed a germination test can miss. It's the answer when a lot needs to move before a full germination test would finish.

Why it matters

Everything we grow starts with a seed.

A field can only be as good as the seed planted in it. Testing catches dead seed, weeds, and mislabeled lots before they cost a farmer a season.

"…the whole agricultural system… relies on the planting of good seed."Jack Dickey, Dickey Seed Company

The crops that depend on it

Row cropsCotton, peanuts, soybeans, and corn, the crops that fill Southern fields.

Small grainsWheat, oats, and rye for flour, feed, and winter cover.

Pasture and forageThe grasses and clovers that feed cattle and other livestock.

TurfLawns, ballfields, parks, and golf courses.

Vegetables and gardensMarket farms, and the packet you pick up for the backyard.

Cover crops and conservationPlantings that hold soil, build it back, and restore land.

The systems that rely on it

The farm's seasonSeed that won't come up can't be replanted in time. One bad lot can cost a whole year.

Food and feedWhat's planted becomes what's on grocery shelves and in livestock feed.

Honest labelsSeed laws, like the 1944 Georgia law that brought Jake to Atlanta, depend on tested numbers.

Weed controlA purity test keeps weed seed from riding along into clean fields.

TradeAOSA, ISTA, and Canadian rules let seed move between states and countries with results everyone trusts.

Read the tag

The lab's work, on every bag you buy.

Next time you pick up seed, look for the label. The purity and germination numbers, and the test date, come from a seed lab's report.

That's the promise Jake Hulsey started keeping in 1951: seed that is what the tag says it is.

Meet our founder

Example tag

Kind and variety[on the tag] Lot number[on the tag] Pure seed__ % Other crop seed__ % Weed seed__ % Inert matter__ % Germination__ % Date testedmo / yr

Exact fields vary by state and crop.

Ready when you are

Have a lot to test?