Question & AnswerQ&A (BPI ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER NO. 20, S. 2005)
The primary legal basis is the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 7308, also known as the Seed Industry Development Act of 1992, specifically Article II, Section 3C.
This administrative order covers hybrid (F1) seeds and hybrid rice parental seeds, specifically the A or CMS line, B or Maintainer line, and R or Restorer line.
The production area must undergo at least four series of inspections during the seed production process at the transplanting, maximum tillering before heading, flowering stage, and harvest time stages.
The production area must have fertile soil adapted to parental lines, sufficient irrigation, efficient drainage, not shaded, and no previous record of serious pests and diseases incidence.
Isolation ensures genetic purity and avoids pollination from unwanted varieties. The three prescribed methods are distance isolation (100 meters), time isolation (flowering of seed parent separated by at least 3 weeks from other cultivars within 100 meters), and barrier isolation (physical or natural barriers of specified height).
The color codes are White for Breeder seeds (A, B, R), Red for Foundation seeds (A, B, R, A x R), Green for Registered (A line), Pink for Registered (B/R line), and Orange for Certified (F1).
Proper cleaning and bagging must be observed to maintain cleanliness and sanitation and prevent mechanical mixtures of varieties.
The production area must be at least five hectares of compact land.
Non-compliance with the requirements such as production area standards, inspection rules, isolation methods, seed standards, and proper documentation can lead to denial of seed certification.
For 1-10 bags per lot, all bags are sampled. For parental seeds, for example 50 bags per lot at 15 kgs each, at least 10 bags are sampled. For F1 production with 100 bags per lot at 20 kgs each, at least 20 bags are sampled.
The National Seed Quality Control Services, which has jurisdiction over the area, receives inspection reports and oversees the inspections.
Sources of undesirable rice plants such as volunteer plants and off-types must be removed from A or R lines at any time during plant development, especially during maximum tillering, flowering, and before harvest stages.
The flowering stage inspection ensures that all possible sources of contamination are rogued and off-types are properly removed; failure to do so will result in field rejection if off-types remain after inspection.
For proprietary hybrids, a quality declared scheme is followed for AxB production (Foundation and Registered Seed), and for AxR production, the same procedures as public hybrids are applied (field inspection and lab analysis).
R lines must be harvested ahead and taken out of the field before harvesting the A line (seed parent) to maintain seed purity.