Control of the sanitary quality of cereal seeds

While control on the health quality of cereals are systematically carried out in collection centres, this is not the case for direct sales or for the use of farm-saved seed. However, the presence of certain diseases requires special attention and an appropriate approach. Practitioners who took part in the CerQual project (OFAG, completed in 2020) asked to be given more support on this subject by providing information, decision-making tools and quality control procedures for their production.

The quality control can be organised in several distinct stages: observations in the field or post-harvest, analyses carried out by the farmers themselves or by specialised laboratories in Switzerland or abroad.

The aims of this project are:

• to provide a quality control approach for cereal grains and seeds (mycotoxins and bunts)
• to obtain risk assessment and self-diagnosis tools
• to specify the contexts requiring an analysis, to inventory and document the analysis procedures and their interpretation
• to document the remediation measures corresponding to the different contexts

• Canton of Vaud

• Further programmes

• Charles Raphaël (Department Suisse Romande)

• Wendling Marina (Department Suisse Romande)

• Department Suisse Romande (FiBL Switzerland)