Commercial vegetable production demands the use of high quality vigorous seed that germinate quickly and uniformly. Many vegetables are started in greenhouses and transplanted to the field like the head lettuce pictured here. To obtain maximum efficiency, each cell in the transplant tray must contain a healthy plant. All plants must be the same size so they can be transplanted at the same time. Because of the intensity of these cultural systems, vegetable growers demand more performance from seeds than growers of agronomic crops. Growers will demand even better seed performance in the future to protect their investment in costly genetically engineered crops.

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