Farmers commonly plant trees on farms or community lands to grow products that satisfy household needs and market demands. Non-government organizations (NGOs) and projects often support farmers' tree-planting efforts. Tree seed, a key input that determines the success of any tree planting activity, is often in short supply or sometimes ignored. As a result, farmers and NGOs use whatever seed is available, regardless of its quality. In most scenarios good quality tree seed is not readily available to tree planting initiatives for a number of reasons, including:

• A lack of awareness concerning the importance of seed quality.
• Limited quantities of good quality seed are available; 
• Limited areas of forests and plantations exist that produce good quality seed (seed producing areas are called seed sources').
• The genetic quality of forests is often degraded because the best quality trees have been harvested, leaving only poorer quality trees available for seed collection.
• Local collectors, dealers and other workers in the tree seed sector have limited training and inadequate facilities to produce, handle and store seed properly.
• No labeling or certification systems exist to provide adequate information (to the farmers and NGOs) concerning the origin and quality of the tree seed that is available.
• Lack of premium is paid for timber or other wood products that comes from quality tree seed.

This have not been a case for TFS tree seeds. TFS supplies within and outside the country an average of 20 tons of seed from various tree species annually. These trees have various uses such as timber, shade, fruits, medicine, firewood, agro-foresry, fibre, dye and cultural values. TFS always maintains a stock of around 13 tons of tree seeds for pick and pay customers (around 500 documented customers) of different categories such as Non-government Organisations involved in tree planting, National, Regional and District foresters, Commercial plantations, Private nurseries, farm-ers and other Forestry disciplines. TFS has verified seed sources of more than 150 different indigenous and exotic tree species which comprised of high quality seed orchard of Teak, Pines, Eucalyptuses and other indigenous species like Milicia excelsa, Khaya anthotheca and Afzelia quanzensis. These verified seed sources have been managed, established classified by traditional seed source classes (the FAO, DFSC, OECD schemes) of which we have all 5 clasess as follows;

• Seed collection zone (Z):  Seed source consist of scattered trees, shelterbelt plantings, groups of trees or small woodlots interspaced with little management effort for genetic quality. 
• Unclassified seed source (U):  Seed source that is inadequately described, poor quality of the trees and not managed. Seeds can be collected, raised and marketed with little or no supervision.
• Selected stand/ seed stand (S):  A group of trees identified in a natural forest or plantation or farmland with superior characters (straight stem or fast growth) with little or no management as a seed source.  
• Seed production/ collection area (A):  A stand of trees in either a natural forest of plantation that is managed and regularly improved through selective thinning of poor-quality trees and retain trees of superior quality at optimal space for seed production.
• Seed orchard (O):  A stand of trees (clonal or seedling) from families of improved genetic quality for the purpose of seed production, isolated from inferior trees of the same or closely related species.
• Clonal garden, cutting orchards, clone propagation archives, vegetative propagules source (several names are used). This special category became necessary as vegetative propagation became a common way of raising trees. The source is mother source of vegetative material which is used for vegetative propagation of plants for bulk production. The term clonal garden is sometimes confused with clonal (seed) orchard. However, although the parent material is often (but not always) clonal material the distinction is that the harvested material from clonal garden is vegetative material and not seed. Vegetative material may be cuttings or explants for micro-propagation / tissue culture. 
   
Note: 
Comparisons of the characteristics and seed quality of the five types of seed sources provided above, seed orchards and seed production areas represent intensively managed areas where selection has been conducted to improve the genetic quality of the entire population. In contrast, the management of, selected stand/ seed stand (S) and plus tree/ seed trees focuses on increasing the seed production of individual trees. Seed orchards produce the best quality seed, followed by seed production areas, seed stands and then individual seed trees.