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Minutes of the January 9, 2002 FRSA Meeting
Respectfully submitted by: Laurie Thoma, FRSA member, USDA-ARS-NCGRP, for Mike Bricker, FRSA Secretary.
The January 9, 2002 FRSA General Meeting was graciously hosted by Brigette
Fishburn and her colleagues at SeedEx in Longmont, Colorado.
Members and guests present were Laurie Thoma, Mike Dideriksen, Mike Nelson,
Brigette Fishburn, Mary Loring, Loren Wiesner, Jim Bruce, Annette Miller,
Marilyn Milhous, Sherry White, Cheryl Johnson and Irene Cardona.
Cheryl Johnson, President, called the meeting to order at 1:45 pm, after a tour of the SeedEx facility.
Mike Nelson, the new FRSA representative for Syngenta introduced himself to those present. Welcome Mike!
Annette Miller, informally gave the Secretary’s report in the absence
of Mike Bricker. Due to the absence of the Secretary, approval of the
October 10, 2001 minutes were postponed, and there was no new information
to present on membership renewals.
Pat Conine presented the Treasurer’s report. This report was
found to be in good standing with little activity in the last quarter.
Annette Miller presented the Website Administration report. The Study
Guide to the Seeds of Colorado is up and running on the FRSA site.
Action will be taken to update member information and to make such information
more user-friendly. Annette plans to post some of the pictures she
will be including in her TZ talk at the Native Seed Quality Workshop, to
be held in February of 2002.
Laurie Thoma, Annette Miller and Mike Dideriksen presented their progress
with the Outreach Committee. After a review of the Mobile Investigations
program, a ‘To Do’ list was passed around and members volunteered
to work on these tasks. Jim Bruce, Marilyn Milhous and the Colorado
Seed Lab volunteered to work on the background information which will include
the what, why, how and who of seed testing. The following either volunteered
or were selected to put together mock germination data, purity data, and
blank calculations for wheat, sugar beets, Echinacea, alfalfa, and ryegrass.
Those working on this task are the Colorado Seed Lab, Mike D. and Mike N.,
Jane Hall (not present, but appointed), Annette and Cheryl respectively.
Thank you all for your ideas and time! All members with access to a digital
camera were encouraged to take photos in their respective labs to show different
areas of seed testing. Please email such pictures to Laurie at lthoma@lamar.colostate.edu.
Members with access to species listed on the excel list were encouraged to
collect them and send them to Laurie as well (Laurie Thoma, USDA-ARS-NCGRP,
1111 South Mason, Fort Collins, Colorado 80521). Laurie will continue construction
of the reference sheets and all laminated pages.
With the absence of Barbara Atkins, there was no SCST Continuing Education update.
Loren Wiesner and Jim Bruce presented the progress with the Distance Education
Seed Analyst Course Program and are pleased to announce that there are currently
over 320 students representing 27 states and 8 countries enrolled in the
distance education program! All of the Distance Ed. Seed Analyst Courses
are available to take online with a semester to complete.
Loren and Jim continued and presented the advancements with the seed images
website. They are working with an outside Webmaster and are looking
for funding from the American Seed Trade Association. Use of the website
will be limited to those who have a subscription and those who are members
of ASTA, providing they give financial support. The details are still
to be worked out. They would like to see more emphasis toward noxious
weeds and provide links to other references. As for the summer workshops,
they are scheduled for the weeks of July 15, 2002 (Purity) and July 22, 2002
(Germination).
There was no formal update on the Colorado Noxious Weed List presented.
Although Annette did mention that she had previously given collection materials
to Eric Lane, but has not heard back from him. She will follow up.
There was no presentation of the CSGA/CSIA meeting report, as there were no members in attendance.
Loren presented information on the Native Seed Quality Workshop, organized
by Midwest Seed Services. The workshop will be held at the University
Park Holiday Inn in Fort Collins, Colorado February 26-27, 2002. Registration
is $150 per attendee. Loren moved for FRSA to sponsor the mid morning
coffee break on the 27th, donating $250. Second Jim Bruce. A
committee was formed to manage the FRSA booth at the same event. Committee
members are: Jim Bruce, Cheryl Johnson, Mike Bricker, Sherry White and Irene
Cardona. Thank you. Loren is working on a price reduction for
FRSA members in light of our donations of time, knowledge and money.
As far as we know, attendees will be eligible for continuing education points,
but the number is unknown.
Cheryl presented the update on the Anna Lute Award. There needs to
be some kind of advertisement for candidate nominations, as there are few
in the current selection pool. The new Anna Lute Nominations Committee
is: Annette (AOSA), Brigette (Commercial) and Dr. Mark Brick of CSU department
of Soil and Crop Science was appointed as the industry representative.
If Dr. Brick is unavailable, the second choice appointee is Dr. Jack Fenwick,
also of CSU, department of Soil and Crop Science.
Annette moved to donate $200 to the Thornton/Massa Lecture fund at CSU and
to donate $200 to the CSGA/CSIA Scholarship to CSU Plant Science Department.
Second Mike Dideriksen.
The July Seed Analyst Forum Committee is: Laurie, Annette, Irene and
possibly Sherry and/or Marilyn. The ‘off the top’ idea
for this year’s forum is to test the seed identification project for
Mobile Investigations and to test the seed image website. In order
to receive SCST points, we will plan to focus on Colorado Noxious Weeds.
The next FRSA meeting will be 1:00 pm, Wednesday, April 10, 2002 at Syngenta.
Host will be Mike Nelson. This meeting will include review and discussion
of the 2002 AOSA Rules Proposals.
There was no other new business and Cheryl Johnson, FRSA President, adjourned the meeting at 3:40 pm.
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