Benefit of Using Certified Seed Wheat

More industry organizations and universities are recommending farmers purchase and plant Certified Wheat Seed. John Fietsam, Monsanto's Wheat Technical Product Lead, says with Certified Seed, growers can see better results at harvest.

Fietsam: "Planning with certified seed ensures access to the highest yield potential available because you are planting seeds with the purest genetics, the best germination and the highest quality conditioned grain. Planting certified seed is essential to ensuring that the genetic purity, yield, and quality potential that breeders have spent years building into the variety is retained in the wheat seed. Certified seed from Westbred wheat has been lab-tested and professionally conditioned greatly decreasing the threat of contamination from weed seeds, disease and foreign material."

He says growers face potential risks if they choose not to plant Certified Seed, and instead plant saved seed. He says the five-bushel-per-acre improvement in yield potential outweighs the upfront cost of planting Certified Seed over saved seed.

Fietsam: "Growers who plant and save seed also have time and labor costs from necessary tasks of such as seed cleaning and treating that seed. If growers don't go through great efforts to ensure that storage, cleaning and treatment are completed correctly, contamination can quickly become an issue. With saved seed, growers face the risk of the purity of their seed degrading year after year. Every season that a variety is saved and replanted, the genetic purity, yield, purity, quality, and profit potential that breeders invested years building in the variety may be reduced. Because of this, saved seed has the potential for less predictable performance."