Quality Assessment for Lettuce Seed by Linda Barbosa

Issue Date: March 2010

The Seed Analysis Lab at Eurofins STA Laboratories specializes in lettuce. Well over half of all germination tests in the lab are on lettuce. Our staff is familiar with new crop, organic, enhanced, pelleted, and carryover inventory.

All lettuce needs a standard germination test with an assessment of the level of cotyledon necrosis. This provides a standard for comparison and a way to monitor lots which may be starting to decline. Some customers request a root emergence count at 24 or 48 hours as another indicator of quality.

Other customers are concerned with performance when planting in the desert so they will ask for an additional test at a temperature that is higher than normal test conditions.

Then we have customers who have an inventory of lots with similar germination percentages that they would like to be able to separate by vigor rating. ESTA recommends the Seed Vigor Imaging System. This test measures speed of emergence and uniformity of growth. These measurements are combined to provide a vigor rating number. Please download a detailed description of this test protocol at our ESTA knowledge center. You can see that there are several test options which will help you make decisions on management of lettuce seed lots. In this case the more information the better since lettuce is a high value crop. If you would like to discuss the test options that we can provide at ESTA please contact John Mizicko at 408-846-9964 or at johnmizicko@eurofinsus.com.