OSU plays an important role in marketing through the Seed Certification Service. The certification program helps assure buyers that Oregon seed is quality seed. To meet certification standards, a growers field must pass a seedling inspection and a crop inspection prior to harvest, and cleaned seed must meet germination and purity requirements. Production Practices are Changing Although the Willamette Valley is ideal for grass seed production, disease problems limited the growth of the industry during its infancy. Open-field burning was developed as a solution to disease problems, and it has continued to keep incidence of disease at low levels.
Field burning remains a controversial practice and a complicated issue.
Because burning accomplished a number of management tasks for the farmer so effectively and cheaply, alternatives have been slow to emerge. Finding a market for one million tons of grass straw remains as an important challenge to the industry. Public concern over air pollution from smoke during the field burning season in the Willamette Valley has resulted in legislative restrictions on field burning. Over this same time period, total acreage of grass seed crops in the valley has increased by almost 130,000 acres, from 240,000 in 1968 to 367,000 in 1993. To make these adjustments, some seed growers have invested heavily in straw-handling equipment to remove residue from fields, for sale or disposal by stack burning.