December 12, 2017
Agriculture
Seed Coating: A Farmer-Friendly Technique For Producing Crops
The world’s population is increasing, and so is the need to feed the population. Seeds provide nutrition and protection to the embryo.
The growth and development of the plant as a whole depend upon the performance of the seed.
The yield, performance of the plant and its resistance to undesirable parameters of the plant depends upon the emergence and the germination rate of the seed.
Seeds are powerhouses of nutrition, which makes them perishable. Various biological, physical, and chemical parameters affect the performance of the seed as well as the seedlings.
As we know, seeds are full of nutrition, which makes them susceptible to various biological flora like bacteria, fungi, pests, insects, and nematodes.
Physical parameters like dust & temperature also affects the seeds, high temperature causes seed desiccation which affects the embryo.
In order to generate a healthy quantity and quality food crop, the health of the seed needs to be taken into consideration.
Seed coating technology involves the technique in which the seed is supplemented with several materials like nutritional elements, plant growth regulators, chemicals, and pesticides in order to improve the seed vigour by the addition of adhesive substance onto it.
Various natural and synthetic polymers can be used as an adhesive for coating the seeds. Natural polymers like Cellulose, Chitosan, Acacia gum, Starch, etc. can be used.
Synthetic polymers like polyethylene glycol, Polyvinyl acetate, Polyvinylpyrrolidone, etc., can be used in seed coating technology.
A slurry is created, which is used for coating the seed, which consists of a polymer (adhesive), Antifungal & antibacterial agents (protection against pathogenic bacterial and fungal cultures), Color (For improving the aesthetic value), Plant growth hormones (Auxin & cytokinin as a plant growth regulators).
The advantage of this seed coating technology is that the quality of the seed is not hampered by any external factors.
Disadvantages can be the uneven coating and thickness of the seed coat, which can hamper the emergence and germination rate.
The solution to this problem can be filming the materials. Seed filming is a technique in which the slurry is sprayed onto the seeds as they flow through or are dropped into an automated machine.
A thin layer of required material is coated onto the seeds by spraying, using the seed filming technique.
The polymer which is used in this technique dry’s off within no time, therefore the seeds can germinate through the dry polymeric coating after sowing.
Seeds, when treated with various materials, can help improve the performance prior to sowing.
An environmentally safer way to use insecticides, pesticides, and fertilizers can be seed coating, as the quantity required is in very small amounts.
Seed coating technology does not hamper the genetic makeup.
Therefore, this technique is a far more farmer-friendly & environment-friendly way to improve the yield and quality of crops.
Organica Biotech uses seed coating technology to develop advanced, environment-friendly, and sustainable products for agricultural growth.
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Thank you for the post on farmer-friendly techniques for producing crops. I think it’s cool that there is a technique to coat the seeds with everything they need to grow. From supplements and nutritional elements to pesticides so they don’t get eaten.