Towards Safer Seeds: The Changing Landscape of Seed Health Testing

The main staple foods and a variety of plant products that are consumed around the world share the same origin: a seed. More than ever, seeds are globetrotters: they are moved across the world for different goals (e.g. crop production, breeding, seed multiplication, commercialization, research trials). There are a huge number of seeds traded each year: 7 660 613 metric tons exported in 2022 for a value of 16 230 million USD. In such a dynamic economic sector, circulating safe seeds is therefore crucial to secure plant health. However, introductions of pests in new countries worldwide due to infested seeds were recorded as early as the 1880s, confirming that seeds can be a pathway for pest dissemination. In today’s rapidly changing world, plant disease emergences can occur everywhere, for multiple reasons - climate change, global trade, or evolving agricultural practices. Disease emergences require rapid reaction time. Therefore, there is a need for a faster delivery of seed health knowledge: which pests are associated with which seeds, and which detection method is most appropriate? The seed sector has made impressive progresses in improving seed health quality. The presentation will offer a concise overview of seed health testing, highlighting key historical and technical developments with an emphasize on several international initiatives for improving seed (and plant) health designed to benefit a large scope of users, including technical staff, researchers, students and teachers, policymakers. Such initiatives include the publication by the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) of curated lists of seed-borne pests, detection methods and high-quality pest images.