Pacific Seeds' state-of-the-art seed processing plant in Toowoomba, Australia

Last fall the market leader Pacific Seeds has completed the installation of a state-of-the-art $2.4 million processing plant in Toowoomba. The plant is custom-built to facilitate growing demand from customers and provide the highest quality product to the market.

According to ADVANTA SEEDS Media Relations Office, the new plant combines multiple cutting-edge mechanisms that are expected to increase seed processing capacity by 30 per cent and significantly improve seed cleaning and treatment across a wide range of crops. Pacific Seeds processing and warehousing manager Angus Rathie said the design for the new plant would mean improvements across seed quality, plant safety and plant efficiency.

“This project has been in the works since early 2018 and we’ve worked hand-in-hand with PETKUS Technologies, a German based firm, and GrainTech Engineering who have been the principle equipment designers and suppliers,” Mr Rathie said.

“The initial concept for the plant was based around having a portable commercial sized colour sorter available for cleaning our seed, so that we could move around from silo to silo. “As we developed the idea, we realised that we could hit two birds with one stone by combining those plans with additional upgrades to the seed cleaning shed and amplify our overall cleaning and treatment activity”.

“Our new seed cleaner, the PETKUS M 12 S multi-cleaner, was especially manufactured for flexible, high quality use and can be used on a wide array of seed varieties. The seed then travels over the PETKUS G40 and G20 gravity separators, with an innovative design approach to their layout to improve cleaning efficiency. Along with the new seed cleaning technology and gravity tables that have been integrated into the design, we’re particularly excited about the PETKUS Roeber OptoSelector 901 colour sorter. The advanced software processes the individual kernel images and incorporates size and shape recognition technology as a standard feature. This helps to remove any seeds that are particularly hard to detect, seeds that the cleaner or gravity tables might not sort out. There is also a seed treater built into the line for treating crops like wheat or chickpeas.”

The upgraded plant design includes team member-friendly features such as increased access points to machinery, replacement of all bucket elevators with pendulum elevators, updated ladder and walkway positioning and improved emergency technology.

Across the board, this new plant means significant benefits for customers, the company and for our growers,” Mr. Rathie said. “The plant has been designed for maximum flexibility, in order to make the cleaning and treating process more efficient and to produce a high-grade product.

Pacific Seeds marketing manager Andrew Short confirmed that forage sorghum, grain sorghum and corn were the first seed to be processed with the new equipment.