Self help advice has been a popular topic for many years. Years ago it was available through books, magazines and talk shows, but today it likely is podcasts and “googling” for information. Just as many of us work to improve ourselves in our private lives, many organizations seek to improve themselves through concepts such as quality management systems and LEAN management principles. The ISU Seed Lab has been ISO 9001 certified since about 2002 and USDA Accredited Seed Lab (ASL) certified since 2011. Certification has promoted changes that have helped us serve our customers more efficiently and make it more convenient for them.
I am happy to report that in the last nine months or so the pace of change has really accelerated. As it is critical to get information to customers ASAP, it is neat that almost all of our reports of analysis are now sent via email rather than by the much slower U.S. Mail. This change eliminated unnecessary steps in the reporting process while making information available to customers much faster. Along with this we are promoting changes “on the other end” – submitting samples. While we’ve had “e-transfer” available for a while, it is much easier for customers to use now. E-transfer is adding sample submission information to an Excel E-transfer spreadsheet which is emailed to Seed Lab Customer Care and uploaded into out testing database CySeed (“Cy” for Cyclones). Advantages of e-transfer include eliminating CC staff entering sample information, no confusion over what is on submission forms and quicker availability of samples for the testing process to begin.
We’ve always been proud of our highly regarded focus on customer care. Cherie’s friendly manner and focus acting on customer requests ASAP were highly appreciated by our customers. The “baton” was passed to Mattea and now is in the capable hands of Tess and Day. Tess is our Manager of Customer Relations and as such does a lot of higher level customer care work (most notably working to streamline processes and to make improvements to Customer Care equipment and facilities). Day (short for Dayana) is our Customer Relations Coordinator and Day’s focus is receiving samples, reporting results and interacting with customers and prospective customers. Recent changes to CySeed have improved tracking samples, inputting information, generating results and more. One of the most exciting advances is the use of “Cackle”, our new internal system for tracking communication with customers and also within the Seed Lab. Cackle has made it much easier for all staff involved with particular samples or situations to be instantly knowledgeable of their status.
DORMANCY – As we make our annual move into testing cover crop seed, DORMANCY once more will be a frequently used word for Seed Lab staff and for many customers. Please refer to last May’s Manager’s Corner for information about what is dormancy in seeds, how it may be broken during testing and how it affects the length of testing. Customer Care’s new “Roots” newsletter, which will be sent out soon, provides useful information about Seed Lab Customer Care, dormancy, and other topics. Testing cover crop seeds typically involves adding a prechill period to the germination period to be able to get a good idea of germination rate of seeds once dormancy has been broken, if it is present. If the submitted seeds were grown more than six months ago or so, then a prechill isn’t needed. Notifying ISU Seed Lab Customer Care of the approximate harvest date when the sample is submitted will improve the turnaround time of the sample.
Did you know that the first course listed in an Iowa State College (now ISU) course catalog was Botany XIV “Seeds & Seed Testing”? In that tradition, Beginner Purity week of the Seed Analyst Short Course will be held the week of August 14th. Advanced Purity and Germination weeks were held last April. Please check the Seed Lab website (www.seedlab.iastate.edu) for information about workshops to be offered in 2024 and a lot of information on seed testing.
