Special Requirements and Standards

Application Due Dates

Field inspection applications for kinds other than bermudagrass are due in the ACIA office before the particular crop begins to head out. Bermudagrass applications are due on May 1 and October 1 for spring and fall crops, respectively. An inspection application must be filed for each seed crop that is to be considered for certification.

Source of Planting Stock

All classes of certified seed may be produced from vegetatively propagated planting stock in accordance with procedures that may be specified by the plant breeder or originating institution of a particular variety.

Limitation of Generations and Stands

Only the Foundation and Certified classes of bermudagrass are recognized. The number of years that gras fields may be eligible for producing any class of certified seed may be limited by the owner of the variety.

Registration of Fields of Perennial Grasses

An applicant shall submit a completed Perennial Crop Application Form (APPENDIX C, available from the ACIA office) within 30 days of planting for a particular field to be eligible for certification. The field will remain under the supervision of ACIA as long as the field is eligible for certification.

General Field Standards

Land History

Land planted for Foundation class seed production shall not have grown any other variety of the same species during the previous five years and shall have grown cultivated crops during three of those years.

Land planted for Registered and Certified class seed production shall not have grown any other variety of the same species during the previous three years and shall have grown cultivated crops during two of those years, except that the cultivation requirement is waived if the crop grown was of the same variety and it passed field inspection for certification.

Certified seed production fields shall be free of volunteer plants of the same species prior to planting. The certifying agency may, at its discretion, require a pre-planting inspection in an undisturbed state for any field to be eligible to produce certified seed.

Field Inspection

One or more inspections of each seed crop intended for certification shall be conducted after the crop is fully headed.

Unit of Certification

The unit of certification shall be a seed field or block surrounded by at least five feet of ground that is uncropped, mowed or of another crop kind.

Isolation

Fields producing any class of certified seed must be set apart from another field containing different strains or varieties of the same species having overlapping blooming periods as indicated in the following table.

* For the certified class of cross- or open-pollinated only, the isolation distance is waived when 10% or less of the field being inspected falls within the isolation zone created by the specific isolation requirement against an offending field (see alfalfa isolation distance standard for a more precise explanation of “isolation zone.”) This waiver does not apply to the production of hybrid varieties.

Specific Field Standards

Bermudagrass

The maximum permitted other varieties and/or off-type plants shall be "None" for Foundation class seed production and 0.3% (by area) shedding pollen or bearing seedheads at the time of final inspection for Certified class seed production.

All Other Grasses

The maximum permitted frequency of other species, other varieties of the same species and/or off-type plants shall be: 

Seed Standards for Bermudagrass

* Specifically: sprangletop, lovegrass and sand dropseed.

Seed Standards for Range and Conservation Grasses

AOSCA and ACIA maintain separate seed standards for a number of native and introduced range and conservation-use grasses including, lovegrasses, Indian ricegrass and chaffy kinds certified by Pure Live Seed Index (Arizona cottontop, bluestems, buffalograss, gramagrasses and Indiangrass). Contact the ACIA office for more information.