Spinach seed priming boosts Danish seed production

Date:07-31-2017

The small country of Denmark is a big player in the area of global seed production. Around 5000 highly skilled Danish growers produce more than 40 % of the EU’s total production of grass and horticultural seeds for crops including (but not limited to) spinach, cabbage, herbs, chrysanthemum and flowers. The growers in Denmark benefit from fairly isolated production areas that experience minimal diseases pressure and extremely long summer days – making it ideal for seed production.

Industry reports estimate that Demark accounts for 80 % of the European production of Spinach seeds. Danish seed growers and breeders naturally are continuously seeking new methods to improve the quality and yield of their multiplication fields.

Spinach Seed Priming – Emergis® Verno®

For spinach, one factor that can critically limit the production of seed and its final yield is the time window in which male and female plants choose to flower. If the timing of the male and female flowering parental lines do not overlap sufficiently, the result at harvest time can be very disappointing due to either low yield or poor quality because of inbreds in the produced hybrid.


Germains emergis® verno ® spinach seed priming can significantly improve the synchronisation of flowering times of male and female parental lines, resulting in higher quality and improved seed yields. The Spinach emergis® verno ® treatment is a highly specialized treatment of parental line seed that is benefiting seed producers in Denmark and throughout Europe.

Growers Experience the Benefits of Spinach Seed Priming

During a recent visit to Denmark, Ab Aarnoudse, European R&D Manager and Hans Renia, Key Account Manager at Germains spent several days visiting Spinach seed production fields of leading seed companies. While visiting growers and seed producers who are paid by kilo and quality reported that they are able to sell more kilograms of high-quality spinach seed due to the benefits of Germains’ emergis® verno® seed technologies.


Emergis® verno® seed priming is exclusively available to customers of Germains Seed Technology. For more information about this product, please download the tech sheet here or contact your Germains Key Account Manager for assistance.