Quality Assurance

The purpose of MCIA’s Quality Assurance (QA) program is to provide a complete service for seed merchandised as varieties, hybrids, brands or blends that are not eligible to be marketed as certified seed. System guidelines are very similar to certification guidelines and enable the seed producer to market seed with the assurance to each customer that the seed is of known purity and quality as verified by an unbiased third-party agency.

The program provides:

• Coordinated, professional and unbiased field inspections and laboratory testing for quality control in seed production, conditioning and marketing.
• Unbiased record system for use in meeting state and federal seed law requirements, assessing royalties or research fees, establishing a defense for use in avoiding problems, and helping to resolve problems between seed suppliers, growers and customers.
• A marketing image of sound quality control for selling seed.
• Seed buyers with assurance that the designated seed has met purity standards related to a known description across seedlots and years of production.

Requirements for producing Quality Assured seed include:

• Planting eligible seed stock – seed source proof is mandatory.
• Field inspection – random plant counts throughout field and evaluation of varietal purity determine whether the field is accepted or rejected.
• Seed samples must meet standards based on complete lab analysis – seed testing is based on detailed analysis of a representative, cleaned sample from the seedlot.
• Proper seed labeling – specific requirements apply to analysis and green QA labels with regard to pure seed, inert matter, other crop, weed seed and germination.