Crop-Specific Seed Production Practices
Crop-Specific Seed Production Practices
This domain tests how the general principles are applied to the crops in the syllabus: cereals, pulses, oilseeds and vegetables. Expect seed rate, spacing, roguing stage, harvesting and extraction questions.
Key crop rules
- Cereals: use healthy, treated seed; avoid excessive nitrogen, which causes lodging; rogue before flowering; harvest at physiological maturity to avoid shattering.
- Pulses: treat seed with Rhizobium and protect flowers from insect pests; harvest before pods shatter.
- Oilseeds: respect isolation because many are cross-pollinated; rogue off-types early; dry seed carefully because oil-rich seed heats in storage.
- Vegetables: separate seed crops from market crops; harvest fruit at the correct maturity; extract, wash and dry seed without fermentation damage.
Worked example
A wheat seed crop is recommended at 100 kg/ha. The seed lot has 90% germination and 98% purity. Adjusted seed rate = 100 ÷ (0.90 × 0.98) = 113.4 kg/ha. For 0.4 ha, requirement = 113.4 × 0.4 = 45.4 kg. The adjustment uses pure live seed, not the labelled weight alone.
Traps that cost marks
Using grain-crop rates and late irrigation; harvesting after shattering; mixing seed from different fields; and treating vegetable seed extraction as a market-fruit operation.