Bassersdorf, Switzerland
July 21, 2017

The 32nd International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) Annual Meeting was held in Denver, Colorado (USA), from 19-22 June and was hosted together with Association Official Seed Analysts ( AOSA) and Society Commercial Seed Technologists (SCST)

This joint meeting was an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen the interactions that already exist, and for members of all three organizations to discuss and exchange ideas.

The main objectives of the ISTA Annual Meeting are to decide on proposals for changes to the lnternational Rules for Seed Testing, to present the work of ISTA’s Technical Committees and to provide a forum for exchange of recent scientific advancements in seed science and technology.

The joint event brought together 284 participants from 35 countries, including AOSA/SCST and ISTA delegates and representatives from both the seed industry and governments.

This year, the Annual Meeting was preceded by four workshops:

• Applications on Statistics in Seed Sampling
• Native Seed Testing
• Flower Seeds Testing
• Tolerances in Seed Testing

The program of the event begins with two half day sessions: “Trait Purity Testing for GMO” and “Building relations and collaboration in seed testing”.

Every day during the event, each committee was given the opportunity for side meetings at the meeting venue. Many of this year`s session were held jointly amongst the three associations. The week was full of insightful presentations, thoughtful discussions and new resources for collaboration and working relationships.

At the official banquet on June 21st, participants were greeted by welcome speeches from Craig McGill, ISTA president, Randy Crowl, President of AOSA, Barbara Cleave, President of SCST and Craig Morris representative from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Representatives of several international organizations such as the ISF, OECD, ABRATES and APSA were also attending the event.

The ISTA Annual Meeting ended with the Ordinary General Meeting (OGM), where ISTA Members voted on ISTA Rules changes. This year changes to be highlighted include two new Subchapters in Chapter 7: Seed Heath (7-031: Filtration method for detection of Ditylenchus dipsaci on Medicago sativa, Ditylenchus dipsaci and Ditylenchus gigas on Vicia faba and 7-032: Detection of Verticillium dahliae on Spinacia oleracea (spinach) seed) as well a revision of Chapter 18: Testing Seed Mixtures.

ISTA would like to thank AOSA and SCST for organizing and hosting a joint successful event, and invites the seed testing community to save the date for ISTA’s Annual Meeting 2018, which will take place in Sapporo, Japan, on 11-14 June.

Website: http://www.seedtest.org

Published: July 24, 2017