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Facilities
The Tree Seed Centre facility
includes: offices, cone preconditioning areas,
cone and seed processing and distribution areas,
dedicated seed laboratory, coolers, and long-term
storage vaults.
Seedlot
registration & certification
All seed destined for crown land reforestation
must be registered. Requirements for natural
stand, seed orchard and non-BC seedlots are
legislated in the Chief
Forester's Standards for Seed use.
Seed
storage
Seed storage involves
maintenance of optimum storage conditions for
conifer tree seed. The provinces inventory includes
an operational component used for reforestation
and a contingency for catastrophic losses and
secondly a dedicated seed bank for gene conservation.
Management of the dynamic inventory (seed
sales and transfers) and ensuring the seedlot
balances are accurate is also the role of this
area.
Withdrawal
requests
Seed is primarily
requested for reforestation (sowing requests),
and we also facilitate distribution of seed
for research and other purposes. Requests are
either sent dry or pretreated at our facility.
Testing
Testing uses standardized
sampling, testing and evaluation practices
to quantify seedlot attributes. Seedlot results
are available for moisture content, purity,
germination, seeds per gram, and possibly
fungal assays. In addition to standard tests
the testing area also plays a vital role in
Quality Assurance and research.
Cone
and seed processing
Involves detailed seedlot
evaluation, conditioning of cones, the extraction
of seed from cones (cone processing) and the
removal of debris and non-viable seed (seed
processing).
Cone
and seed improvement
Conducts applied and
basic research on tree seed, constructs and
summarizes quality assurance programs and
performs education, extension and communication
activities.
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