In last weeks Tec Talk I briefly mentioned that our seed was treated, so this week I thought I’d go over what seed treatments are and why we use them.
Basically seed treatments can be broken down to three different types of treatments including insecticides, fungicides and biological treatments. All of these treatments serve a different role but are ultimately there boost seedling vigour and increase the health of the plant.
Fungicide seed treatment work systematically and help to reduce levels of foliar disease along with smut and root rot depending on the treatment used. While insecticide seed treatments also work systematically they are used to prevent insect attack, mainly from pests like aphids, thrips and other sucking pests.
Biological seed treatments can be either living organisms like fungi and bacteria that are added to the seed or plant hormones that may be added to enhance root growth or increase seedling vigour. The most common biological seed treatments would be rhizobia bacteria which are added to the seed of legumes to help them nodulate and fix nitrogen. It’s biological seed treatments that probably have the most exciting future in agriculture as we aim to further our understanding of soil biology.
For more, including some examples of where and why we were using seed treatments check out the podcast on Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts.
In The Paddock Podcast 