 This is Randy Melhoff, Langdon Research Extension Center Director, talking about an important program at the Langdon REC designed to keep the newest and most superior NDSU crop varieties available to North Dakota producers. This program is called the NDSU Foundation Seed Stocks Program. The program itself is administered in the Plant Sciences Department at NDSU and there are five locations throughout North Dakota that are responsible for foundation seed production. Those locations are the agronomy seed farm located at Casselton and at four RECs located throughout North Dakota, Williston, Minot, Carrington, and of course Langdon. When a new NDSU crop variety is released to the public it is essential to rapidly increase seed of the new variety so it is available to the seed industry and farmers in the area. Extreme care and production efficiency all the way from field selection to seed conditioning of the newly harvested seed is required to maintain the highest levels of varietal purity. This is accomplished under a stringent quality control program in cooperation with the North Dakota State Seed Department. The NDSU Langdon Research Extension Center serves Northeast North Dakota, a region that leads North Dakota in hard red spring wheat and canola production. The foundation seed stocks program at Langdon includes 550 acres and produces flax, hard red spring wheat, barley, and recently soybeans and other pulse crops. Or in Northeast North Dakota over 50 percent of the hard red spring wheat grown comes from NDSU varieties which makes this program even more important to our producers. Foundation seed produced at the Langdon Research Extension Center is then distributed to area seedsmen and county crop improvement associations to be sold in the future as registered or certified seed. The overall foundation seed stocks effort is designed to get the newest and most superior NDSU varieties of seed in the hands of all farmers quickly and efficiently.