Tyler Going, 23, peered into the powerful Leica microscope and watched ryegrass seeds bounce rapidly in and out of his view along a vibrating tray.

"Did you watch Sesame Street?" asked Gary Girdler, a Purity Analyst 1 at the Oregon State University Seed Lab.

"One of these things is not like the others."

During seed purity analysis, Girdler is looking for anything that is different in the sample: a weed, a different crop seed or inert matter.

Going, an employee at Opel Family Farm in Albany, accompanied his boss and uncle, Don Opel, 48, and Opel's daughter, Hailey, 20, also an employee, on a tour Wednesday of the Seed Laboratory during its open house and celebration of 100 years of service.

"I'd rather clean it (the seed) than sit in the chair all day," Going said of purity analysis.

The lab developed the Ergovision Inspection Station in cooperation with Mater International. The current purity analysis system is state-of-the-art and highly efficient compared with its origins.

A "hall of history" in the lab shows black-and-white photographs of the early days and work in the lab.

In 1909, the seed lab started with one professor and one analyst in a small room, said Sherry Hanning, who has worked at the lab since the late 1960s.

The lab moved to a Quonset hut in 1945. The photographs show women at desks in front of large windows hunched over boards, sorting seed by hand.

Because they worked using natural light, the analysis would stop when it got dark.

"Even until the late 1960s, when I started, it was all women," Hanning said. "We're the only ones who could stand to sit there and do that work all day long. And we had to wear dresses. It was very cold in the winter."

Women made significant contributions in the seed lab's history.

Merle Pierpoint did extensive, detailed color drawings of seeds and stages of germination that were used in training manuals around the world, Hanning said.

Peggy Hayes began working in the lab after high school and stayed more than 30 years. Her daughters visited the lab Wednesday and saw the photographs featuring their mother, who died recently.

"They'd never seen the photos," Hanning said. "They were delighted."

More than 100 guests and visitors toured the facility during the open house. The lab moved to its current location on Campus Way in 1989.

"It went very well," said Adriel Garay, the lab's manager. "We are very happy a lot of people came. We got to meet our customers and to show some of the new technologies."

Visitors got a taste of the old and the new during the tour.

The lab is home to the Emil Zivney seed collection. Zivney, a 1936 OSU graduate, donated the seeds of more than 20,000 species, including several rare specimens.

"We're really lucky to have this," Hanning said. "The Smithsonian wanted it and he gave it to us."

During the tour, visitors could follow the history and process of testing, including the use of the continuous blower, a machine that sorts chaff from the seed. The technology was also developed in collaboration with Mater International.

"It's a highly controlled situation," Garay said.

The time, air velocity and sample sizes are controlled, precise and repeatable. In the future, this technology could be used by seed-cleaning businesses, saving time and money.

The lab handles 13,000 samples of various grass seeds from growers each year, Garay said. They perform more than 35,000 tests on the samples as part of the Extension Seed Certification.

Growers seek a Blue Tag certification designation, a well-recognized label, he said. "In the area of grass seed testing, this is one of the leading labs in Oregon."