The new specific requirements for the certification of certain Medicago spp were published in the S.A. Seed Certification Scheme during December 2002 as Annexure 5b and the official certification of such species could now be conducted.

Discussions between the Forage Division’s, sub-committee and the Lucerne Seed Organization (LSO) were held during the period under review and consensus was reached in respect of the LSO being responsible for co-ordinating the new lucerne trials for the industry. A Sub-committee was appointed consisting of Dr Dannhauser, Dr Nick Kotze with Gert Els and Darryl Loyd as alternates, for determining the manner in which the trials would be run, for choosing the sites and for deciding on the kind of information needed for such trials. The LSO indicated that they would administrate the trials at no cost at this stage. Participants would carry the cost of conducting the trials. A fee per variety entered into the trials would be charged. This fee would also depend on the number of cultivars entered and the number of sites. The new variety selected from SA Standard would be named SA Select and would be registered during the first quarter of 2003. SA Select would be put out on tender to the members of this division. Successful tenders would pay a lump sum up front, as well as a percentage of royalties based on seed sales. A prerequisite for a sub-licence would be issued; stating that only certified SA Select seed would be sold. Only 150kg of breeder seed was available at the time when this report was compiled. This seed would be evenly distributed amongst the sub-licence holders.

The first cycle of the National Ryegrass trials was coming to an end and a lot of useful information had been gathered on the performance of the available cultivars on a National basis. The new three-year cycle would start soon and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) was waiting for the applications of SANSOR members. At that stage 15 varieties were applied for inclusion in the trials, which should be sufficient for conducting the next round of trials.

Owing to the regular occurrence of nematode galls in locally produced Eragrostis curvula, constraints are experienced on an annual basis with seed sales of this particular crop. It was subsequently decided to contract a researcher to conduct an investigation on the occurrence and prevention of nematode galls, as well as relevant seed treatment that could be applied. A Sub-committee was appointed and the ARC was approached to quote. The ARC submitted a quote for approximately R500 000-00, which was much more than planned for. The Sub-committee was instructed to investigate the relevance and occurrence of the galls, ways to cut down the cost and the effect that seed treatment would have on the cost of the seed. The forage trade would then have to decide on whether potential benefits justified the relatively high cost. In order to authorize the phytosanitary seed inspectors to issue phytosanitary land-inspection reports, training would be conducted by SANSOR.

For this training a list of disease profiles had to be compiled by the Division and this would be put on compact disc, together with pictures of the diseases and each inspector would receive this compact disc for reference.

The International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) introduced new methods of analyzing certain subtropical grass species. These new rules came into effect on 1 January 2002. As the new rules had not yet been published in the SA Government Gazette, South Africa was still working according to the old rules for locally sold seed, but for the issuing of international seed lot certificates, the new method was used. The official seed laboratory requested private laboratories for samples of Digitaria eriantha, Panicum maximum and Chloris gayana to determine the correlation between the old and new method of analyzing samples in order to lay down minimum standards for the South African Plant Improvement Act.

The Forage Division again emphasized the importance of seed statistics, as the Directorate of Statistical Information of the National Department of Agriculture required this information.

Researchers also needed market size on species to determine research direction and relative importance and the Seed Security Network of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) required this information to determine seed availability for the Sub-Region especially in light of the crisis situations already experienced. The manner in which information was gathered was to request all members of the Forage Division to make contributions towards updating the relevant statistics.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) Seed Scheme for Forage Crops allowed less off-types in basic seed than prescribed in the SA Seed Certification Scheme. In order to bring the SA Scheme in line with that of the OECD it was necessary to amend the requirement to one plant per 30 square meters in the case of Basic Seed for 16 species. These amendments were published in the Government Gazette of 13 December 2002 as regulation R1560. An updated Scheme containing the new amendments would shortly be made available to the industry.

A further round of removing redundant varieties from the variety list had been conducted. The newly introduced method for this purpose had been firmly established. Owing to the fact that members would have to pay a levy on varieties they wanted to be maintained on the variety list for the funding of Agri Inspec, the method would be used in future where members would notify the SANSOR Secretariat of varieties not in use on which they did not want to pay this levy. Such varieties would then be removed from the list. Members, however, should also inform the SANSOR Secretariat of any new varieties placed on the list.

Members of the Forage Division felt that Midmar Ryegrass should be fazed out over a period, as the latter is a relatively old variety without plant breeders’ rights and sold in relatively large quantities as "brown bag seed". It was decided that an article on the poor performance of Midmar be placed in the agricultural press. This would be done during the first quarter of 2003.

Table 3 reflects the updated market statistics for the year 2002 of the most important forage and pasture crops under the auspices of the SANSOR Forage Division.