Whichever plant you are sending to our lab, proper sampling and shipping of your samples is imperative for accurate results. Please ensure that you are sending the correct part of the plant (eg. roots, cankers, or graft unions) and taking care to properly label your samples and pack them with an ice-pack to decrease the drying (desiccation) rate of the tissues. If your samples are too dry, the DNA may have been damaged and resampling may be necessary for accurate testing.

Also please make sure to:

• Follow sample collection guidelines specific to your crop (Grapevine, Soil, Alfalfa Hay, Fruit and Nut Tree) See the links in the menu above under “Sample Collection”
• During warmer spring and summer months, make sure to add some blue-ice packs to keep samples from deteriorating and do not allow the ice packs to directly touch the samples. Wrap each pack in a paper towel before shipping.
• Paper bags are not recommended as they can speed up the rate of desiccation

Sample Collection

• Place each individual sample in zip lock bag
  • • Length of the cuttings dictates the bag size size (4-inch fit into sandwich size bag)
  • • Use bigger bags (trash bags) for whole vine sample (i.e. samples for fungal disease tests)
  • • For virus testing on the rooted nursery vines, please cut off the root-portion on the vines, approximately 4 inches below the graft union or the top of the vines). Discard the roots.
  • • You may use up to 10 nursery vines per sample. Make sure number of the cuttings in the bag does not exceed 10
  • • Label bag accordingly (Sample #1….or specific location, row, vine number)

Sending the Samples

• Fill in our sample submission form and submit together with your samples: Submission Form Downloads
  • Download it from our website or email us if you need a copy sent to you.
  • Fill out top portion of form: Contact Information, phone number and email address where to send the results to, also email address and contact information for invoicing if different
  • Check that sample IDs on the sample submission form match those written on the sample bags
  • On larger sample sets, we appreciate simple sample numbers (e.g. #1, 2, etc.) or submit an Excel or Word-file of the sample IDs by email. Also, for larger sample sets, please group them in an order. (It takes enormously long time to fish sample bags among hundreds other bags in the same box.)
• Place sample bags into a second larger bag if needed, and place that into a shipping container (any box, shipping envelope, cooler, etc.
• Please refrain from using packing peanuts (please and thank you!)
• We are always happy to have samples dropped off directly at the lab during our working hours (M-F 9-5 pm)