1. (a) Care must be exercised in harvesting to avoid admixing of the variety in harvesting equipment and in the transporting vehicle. The applicant must see that this equipment is thoroughly cleaned in order to safeguard the purity of the seed. Identity of the seed must be maintained at all times. Certified seed must be conditioned by a conditioning plant that has been approved by the department.
2. (b) Any person, firm, or corporation desiring to become an approved certified seed handler shall make application to the Seed Quality Program for inspection and approval of the seed conditioning facilities. Application for approval must be made each calendar year. Inspection of the facilities by an approved inspector of the certifying agency shall be made in determining approval or rejection. Forms supplied by the Seed Quality Program are required to be used. When a seed conditioning plant has been inspected and meets all requirements, a certificate of approval will be issued by the certifying agency. Thereafter, the facilities are subject to inspection at the discretion of the certifying agency.
3. (c) Facilities shall be capable of performing seed conditioning without introducing admixtures.
4. (d) When different classes of certified seed, or when certified seed and noncertified seed of the same variety or when two or more varieties of the same kind are handled, adequate precautions shall be taken so as to prevent contamination and to maintain the identity of each seed lot. All equipment used in seed conditioning must be thoroughly cleaned before any eligible seed is handled. Identity of seed must be maintained at all times.
5. (e) Records of all operations relating to certification shall be complete and adequate to account for all incoming seed and final disposition of seed. Seed conditioners shall permit inspection by the department of all records pertaining to certified seed.
6. (f) Seed conditioners shall designate an individual who shall be responsible to the Seed Quality Program for performing such duties as it may require.
7. (g) Prior to reconditioning seed bearing the certification labels, an approved inspector must supervise the removal of said labels which are to be surrendered to the inspector.
8. (h) Seed lots of the same variety and class may be blended and the class retained. If lots of different classes are blended, the lowest class shall be applied to the resultant blend. Such blending can only be done when authorized by the Seed Quality Program. The blend is a new lot which shall be sampled and tested in compliance with the commodity standards.

Source Note:The provisions of this §10.8 adopted to be effective September 2, 1996, 21 TexReg 7955.