#Joryweek

A little past 7, I get off my bike; I live in Grootebroek and am at work within minutes. All orders to be cleaned are ready for execution. I choose to get started on cabbage. On the order form I see that I still have to collect the seed myself from the warehouse. I can find this with the badge number that is also attached to the seed. Before the seeds end up at our warehouse, they go through a breeding process. In this process, seeds are improved, giving a specific variety characteristics. Then those seeds remain in the warehouse until a customer places an order. That’s the moment me and my colleagues jump into action. We make sure the seeds are clean for shipment. It only has to be packed and shipped after that!

The order says what kind of job I have to do, in this case a basic clean. In the picture on the right, you can see the seed with dirt, twigs, soil and damaged seeds. My job now is to clean it, but I can’t do that with just one machine. The combination of machines I choose to clean it takes care of that. I start up the lot with one machine; this takes a few hours. In the meantime, I can work on other jobs.

When the batch is ready, I do an inspection. Different margins apply to each variety. I now look at the criteria of cabbage to double-check whether everything is out. I can see from the margins what a batch must meet. If the lot scores a 5, the lot is good. Then, for example, 5 out of every 1,000 seeds may be wrong, think wrong size. Of course, we always try to clean the seeds as much as possible, but after going through the processes, even a 4 is good enough to send the order back to the warehouse. Below ‘4’, however, means the batch needs further cleaning.

This is because the seed goes through several phases in our department: cleaning/cleaning-upgrading (removing junk and bad seeds), washing/disinfecting (washing diseases off seeds) and priming (making sure seeds hatch at the same time through temperature control, among other things). Like me, each colleague has a preferred task.

How the other process parts are doing, we discuss each day during the day’s start with the team. This is every day at 10 o’clock, after our coffee break. Then we discuss the planning, the status of all orders, whether there are any sick people, etc. Occasionally, I will also help out with other tasks, such as washing. Seeds sometimes have diseases or dormancy that need to be washed off. Fun fact: we do this with regular detergent! To kill viruses, we use heat cabinets.

Sometimes you will find me at the drying wall. After washing, the seeds go to this wall to dry. You’ll spend a whole morning on the forklift truck filling the wall with plates full of moist seeds, or taking them out.

Last Saturday it was finally time again; the Seed valley indoor football tournament in the Dars (Wervershoof). Unfortunately, the last two years the tournament did not take place, but that made for all the more enthusiasm among the participants at this 11th edition. This time, the football was organised by my colleagues from Bayer.

Unfortunately, I had to drop out due to an injury shortly before the tournament. Hence, I took on the coaching together with my colleague Paul. After a good pool phase, we eventually had to face Bejo seeds in the finals. Fortunately, the ‘third half’ made up for it and we all ended this great day in a nice way!

I will round up my week of work with some beers with my friends ;). Thanks for reading!