Alfalfa

PSB focuses both on the breeding of new Alfalfa varieties and on the maintenance of registered varieties. The aim of breeding is to improve yield potential, longevity of the stand, forage quality and digestibility, resistance to diseases and environmental stresses, in order to satisfy the farmers, the market and the whole forage production chain. The maintenance of PSB varieties is achieved through check in the field of the main morpho-physiological characteristics of the plant and through isolation from other varieties: each individual plant is carefully examined for the correspondence to the original traits of the variety and a subsequent selection is made. This guarantees the availability of a homogeneous and stable base population from which seed can be obtained for subsequent multiplications in spatial isolation. The whole process of variety maintenance and multiplication is directly controlled by PSB technicians.

Seed Quality

Alfalfa raw seed, as it is delivered to PSB by the farms belonging to the seed supply chain, contains, together with the well ripened filled seed which has the best germinability and vigor, also unsuitable seed (unriped or light seed, seed of different weeds) and inert material (soil and plant  residues), which have to be discarded through the processing in order to obtain top quality seed.

Thanks to the successive steps of the processing we are able to remove progressively the different types of unsuitable seed and impurities:

  • screen cleaner: selects by size, discarding smaller and bigger materials than the suitable seed;
  • cylinders: selects by shape, discarding the rounder and longer materials than the suitable seed;
  • gravity table: selects by specific weight, discarding lighter and weighter materials than the suitable seed;
  • magnetic separator: selects by irregular surface, discarding rougher materials than the suitable seed;
  • velvet rolls: selects the seed removing which has particular surface characteristics, especially Rumex seed.

All the steps of the seed processing (seed) are accompanied by important quality check, in order to driving and verifying the process. PSB will proceed to pack the seed just when it reaches the top of the quality, means at the end of the seed processing, where undesirable materials (30-40% of the original weight of raw seed) have been removed.

We can also supply coated seed on customer’s request; the coating contains fungicide, to protect the seedlings during the first growing steps.