Seed Marketing Control
Only certified seed or plants for planting may be placed on the market. The only exception is vegetable seeds. Vegetable seeds are traded as standard seed, not as certified seed. But standard seed, too, has to comply with the same high quality standards. An official seed control system inspects the seeds placed on the market - the quality of the seeds as well as the packaging, labelling and seed bag closing. In addition, samples are regularly taken in these seed controls from seed lots and sent to the German Plant Variety Office for so-called post-production control cultivation. In this post-production cultivation, the seeds are again tested for varietal purity and varietal identity. If the legal minimum requirements are not fulfilled, the seed control institutions will investigate the reasons for these findings and as a consequence the seed lot may have to be called back.
