Section 8.  General Requirements for Certification

 

A.      Seed Potatoes

 

1.       ANY and ALL seed stocks entered for certification must be approved by Montana State University prior to planting.

 

2.             All potatoes must meet the requirements of this section and meet the disease tolerances in Section 10.

 

3.             Post-harvest testing [also called Hawaii or southern testing] is mandatory for seed shipped out of state to be planted for recertification as seed, and for seed potatoes to be used for recertification in Montana.  Exemption:  Nuclear and Generation 1 seed not to be sold.

 

4.       Any potato seed source not certified by Montana State University must be introduced through MSU, and increased through the Montana State University Potato Laboratory, or an MSU-approved laboratory.  The grower involved shall bear all costs.

 

5.       A seed stock or lot shall be rejected for certification for any of the following reasons:

 

a.      failure to plant MSU-approved seed;

b.      field(s), or any portion thereof, planted with culls;

c.             blending seeds of two different sources;

d.      at the time of inspection or testing, potato plants  failed to meet disease tolerance limits set forth in Section 10.

 

         6.       Seed potatoes grown in Montana, which have been transported out of Montana, cannot be brought back into Montana for recertification.

 

B.      Fields

 

1.       The detected presence of the pathogen Columbia Root Knot Nematode (Meloidogyne chitwoodi) shall disqualify a field for future production of certified seed potatoes, unless the field(s) is fumigated with a recommended fumigant and rotated to a non-susceptible host crop for five years, or until soil tests indicate absence of Root Knot Nematode.

 

2.       The confirmed diagnosis of Bacterial Ring Rot shall disqualify from seed certification all seed potatoes produced under that application for certification, or different applications using the same equipment.  All such fields will be disqualified from seed potato production for a period of two (2) years.

 

3.       There shall be a physical separation:

 

a.      between one registration and another;

b.      of at least twenty (20) feet between certified potato fields and commercial potato fields.

 

4.       Certification shall be denied for any seed stocks grown in field(s) where commercial potatoes were grown the previous season.

 

C.      Storage Facilities

 

1.       Certified seed potatoes shall be neither stored nor graded in a storage facility containing non-certified potatoes.

 

2.       Crops subject to separate applications for certification may be stored in the same storage facility; however, if stored together without a demonstrable separation and a disqualifying disease is found, all commonly stored seed will be denied certification.

 

3.       It is the grower's responsibility to sanitize the potato storage facility.

 

D.      Equipment

 

1.       It is the grower's responsibility to sterilize the equipment before and after use.

 

2.       The exchange of equipment with neighbors is discouraged.  Any such exchanges WILL CONFORM to the conditions in Section 2.G.