California Seed Association profiles Germains
As a member of the California Seed Association (CSA), Germains Seed Technology is actively involved with the association’s committees and values its contributions to the seed industry. We’d like to thank California Seed Association for featuring our Head of R&D and Operations Dale Krolikowski on its most recent CSA Member Profile. Dale’s profile interview gives valuable insight into his role at our Gilroy location, R&D updates and examples of what makes Germains a leader in seed technology.
The following is a portion of the California Seed Associations’s Member Profile interview with Dale Krolikowski:
Q: What is your role at Germains Seed Technology?
A: I am the Head of Operations and Research; this means I oversee the daily manufacturing outputs, Quality Control, Quality Assurance, in addition to the research and development of new seed technologies.
Q: What makes Germains unique in the seed industry?
A: As a seed Technology provider we are very independent, we do not own any genetics or do any breeding, but focus solely on how we can influence the development of a seedling. Our efforts are geared to improving early stand uniformity and healthy clean seed that benefit the grower.
Q: What project(s) are you/your company working on?
A: My team in California is focused on vegetable seed technology. Our top priority project right now is the development of a seed treatment that is 100% National Organic Program compliant, having efficacy against the early dampening off diseases encountered by baby leaf spinach growers. We currently have nineteen projects at various stages of our R&D development pipeline running in our laboratory. We focus on seed technology in priming, enhanced pellets, seed health and disinfection as well as material science like film coating polymers.
Q: What’s new in seed treatments, any innovations?
A: Within Germains, the newest innovations in seed treatments are all proprietary. I’ll just say that we have very outside the box thinkers in the R&D department who continually challenge the existing and past paradigms of what seed technology used to be, I am constantly proud of their innovations. The newest innovations are investigating how biological treatments work either with conventional chemistries or other seed technologies. The objective is to combine up various technologies that increase value to the grower.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like our customers to know about Germains?
A: Germains has been in the seed business for over 150 years. Our longevity is rooted in providing value through innovation to the end user. We have a strong team of individuals worldwide that take lots of pride in the jobs they do every day knowing that we are contributing to keeping our food supply safe and affordable.
More about the California Seed Association
The California Seed Association is a non-profit agricultural trade association which has served the seed industry since 1940. CSA brings all segments of the seed industry together as a strong, united voice that initiates action for the betterment of the California seed industry. The California Seed Association is one of 30 agriculture industry organizations we support in North America and globally. For more information about the California Seed Association, visit calseed.org.