Rogueing crew removing volunteer commercial bean 
plants from a seed field of Tendergreen beans. 
HOW GOOD SEEDS 
ARE PRODUCED 
Good seed doesn’t just happen. Much time 
and effort are involved, and a number of 
vital steps must be taken in the production 
of good seed. Some of these steps are de- 
scribed here briefly. 
BREEDING. This term is used rather broad- 
ly to describe two kinds of plant improve- 
ment work: development of new varieties 
and maintenance of existing stocks. 
New variety development is carried on un- 
der a carefully planned program at our 
breeding farms, and through the years we 
have introduced many new varieties of com- 
mercial importance (including a number of 
All America Selections award winners). 
But the main activity at these farms and the 
real reason for their existence is mainte- 
nance of high levels of purity and trueness 
to type in all the varieties we grow. 
Purelines are built up starting with selec- 
tion of many ideal single plants, then repro- 
ducing and increasing the best of these 
single plants. Field production lines are pe- 
riodically replaced with these new pure- 
lines, according to schedules which have 
been established for each variety. 
PRODUCTION. Controlled production has 
to do with such very important things as the 
selection of a suitable growing area for each 
cAe 
of the nearly 50 kinds of vegetables va 
grow; the increase and maintenance of an 
adequate stock seed reserve for each of the 
500 or so individual varieties listed in this 
catalog; and the maintenance of a staff and 
plant facilities suitable for handling and su- 
pervising the production in each area. In 
addition to supervising planting, spraying, 
dusting, rogueing, harvesting and other Op- 
erations, our field men have the important 
job of maintaining good personal relations 
with the better growers in each area. 
TESTING. After our seeds are grown we 
test and examine them very closely, to sat- 
isfy ourselves and certain legal require- 
ments of the federal and state governments. 
To test varietal purity a representative sam- 
ple of each individual crop is planted on our 
trial ground at Keystone Valley Farm in St. 
Louis County. Comprehensive notes are tak- 
en during the entire process of growth and 
development and should any serious defect, 
such as a mixture or mutation, show up at 
any time, the information is immediately 
phoned to the main office and the lot con- 
cerned is withdrawn from sale. Our trial 
ground observations also allow us to com- 
pare our production lines with others in the 
trade and with new material from state and 
federal plant breeders. Each year over 5,000 
separate lots are tested at our St. Louis trial 
ground and about 1,000 lots are tested in 
our Twin Falls, Idaho trials. 
To test germination and determine pure 
seed content, a sample of each lot is sent to 
our laboratory. Often several] samples of a 
single lot are tested, one after each stage in 
the harvesting and cleaning process. Tests 
are repeated at 6 month intervals. In addi- 
tion to routine germination tests, the labo- 
ratory makes special vitality tests as part of 
our LIFEGARD (T.M.) processing of seed, 
and conducts experiments on the effective- 
ness of new seed treating materials and 
methods. 
Breeding, controlled production, and testing 
are the things that make the difference be- 
tween ordinary seed and good seed. Yet 
none of these things can be seen in the 
bag—they show up only in the growing crop. 
