India Developing Healthier Rice

Breeders Developing New Rice Varieties

I found this story online where India is developing new strains of high yield rice in an effort to feed their growing population, and in some cases stave off starvation.

Uptake of Micro Nutrients Is Key

In particular, they've observed that significant malnutrition can result from a lack of the micronutrients zinc and iron.  Both carry out important processes in the human body, and the typical rice being raised in India doesn't have much of either.

Cooperative Effort Underway

They are attempting to increase the uptake in the rice plant and thusly increase the bio-availability of these vital micro-nutrients when the final grain is consumed.

The project is being carried out by a cooperation between Indian Rice Institute, HarvestPlus, and UC Davis.

The Economic Backstory

I guess I understand the economic impetus behind wanting to do this, and in general i support it.  I suppose it's not economically realistic to expect that the peasants who are suffering the most would be able to access other plants that already naturally provide these nutrients in abundance.

Treating Your Corn Seed

Seed Treating

Growers have been treating soybeans with inoculants for a long time. In this video, the Hefty brothers talk about the recent popularity of soybean seed treatments.

Treating Your Corn

But, it's only recently that treating corn seed after it has been "pre-treated" with fungicides from your dealer for enhanced germination and growth has grown in popularity.  Here is a video that explains the recent growing popularity of corn seed treatments like quickroots:

Boosting Yield 

I you are looking to boost your yields in a high yield corn production environment, the treating your seed is an easy early season test that can not only show you a visual response, in addition to a yield response at the end the of the season

Testing Different Seed Treatments

One of the reasons that seed treatments are gaining popularity is the ease with which a grower can do a side-by-side trial in their own production system.  It's relatively easy to split their planter boxes and put treated seed in half of the planter and untreated in the other, leave all the other inputs identical and get a pretty good "check" or control plot with which to test yield responses and ROIs for a given product.  Here setting up a check plot with amplify-d from Conklin is discussed

Test Them on Your Farm

While we've seen positive yield responses in many of our trials, we encourage all growers to spend a little bit of money and do some trials on their own farm in order to gain confidence that they will be able to get returns on their investment of time and money which would justify seed treatments as an ongoing part of their cropping systems.

Invigor8 Seed Treatments

Invigor8 Seed Treatments

I get a lot of questions everyday about how to treat corn seed with invigor 8 seed treatment by Genesis Ag.

What's Invigor 8?

Invigor 8 is a nutritional supplement, if you will, for young plants.  It's NPK ratio is 0-37-37.  But, the macro nutrients are designed in such a way that it won't burn the seed (or seedling) and rather than harm germination, it actually enhances germination! 

Because it's so gentle, it can be applied directly to, and absorbed into the seed in a matter of seconds.  After application the seed will be dry to the touch.

Why Should I Treat My Seed With Invigor8?

Invigor 8 seed treatment has been used in the last three highest yields in the US, in 2013, 2014 and 2015.  And, all three yield results were new world records!  Invigor 8 ensures that your corn comes out of the ground early, energized, and uniform.  The picture here was taken of corn seed treated with invigor 8 versus a control seed that had been planted for 96 hours in Oklahoma in 2015.

How Do I Apply It To The Seed?

Genesis Ag recommends that you get your seed treated in a commercial seed treater.  However, they also realize that not everyone has a seed dealer willing or able to treat their seed for them, and very few growers have their own treater that isn't already being utilized for soybeans, and are reluctant to run corn through it.

Short of having a commercial drum treater, other options are box to box treater set-ups, seed tender treaters, and in a pinch treating some seed on farm, 1 unit (1 bag) at a time using a hobby cement mixer.

I've included a short video of what's involved with treating your seed with invigor8 below:

Can I Treat My Corn With Invigor 8 After It's Already Been Treated With Fungicides?

Most seed, by the time it arrives on farm, has already been commercially treated with fungicides or other treatments.  Genesis Ag reports that treating with invigor8 over the top of seed previously treated will still get the same germination and uniform emergence benefits of seed treated "naked".

Seed Treatments

Seed Treatments

treated corn seeds

Treatment of seeds either for commercial agriculture or gardening can take many forms. Treatments can include:

• Soaking the seeds (often in warm water)
• Pre-plant seed selection (determining the seeds which will germinate)
• Cold treating seeds to imitate a change of seasons
• Chemically treating the seeds either by soaking in a liquid or coating in a powder that is intended to load the seed with nutrients and increase percentage of seeds that successfully germinate and the emergence timeline, and 
• Treating the seeds with radio or other electromagnetic waves.  There have even been some futuristic attempts to treat seeds with radio waves to increase the permeability of the seeds outer shell and increase germination and emergence, although I have not seen this employed in a commercial scale yet.

Why Treat Seeds?

cracked seeds germinating from seeddynamics.com

Growers have found that some of the most efficient fertilization and anti-microbial or fungicidal application take place in the form of seed treatment.

By placing the chemicals close to the seed farmers are able to maximize the utility of the their fertility or disease suppression program while minimizing the amount of money they would ordinarily have to spend by placing fertilizer throughout the entire field.

The proximity to the seed, and in turn the young plants' roots means that there is maximum potential for the chemicals or biologicals to be used by the seed during germination and the young plant thereafter. In other words, seed treatments, are often showing a favorable return on investment (ROI) in the field and therefore, we anticipate seed treatments to continue to gain popularity in the future..

Seed Treatment Methods

fungicide seed treatment applied by hand

Seed treatment methods vary.  The method employed usually is dependent on the number of seeds to be treated or the amount of acreage being covered with the treated seeds.  As mentioned above, some of the techniques most commonly employed involve, soaking - either in water or chemicals, coating -- usually with micronized chemical or biological treatments, creating temperature variations to enhance germination, and weakening the outer coat of the seed for increased absorption of water and other chemical nutrients.

Seed Treatment Equipment

treatment equipment from ucoatsystems.com

Seed treatment equipment that can be used includes commercial seed treaters seen in the image to the right which will often times micronize the fluid into microscopic droplets for even and consistent coverage of the seeds.  In addition, more DIY style seed treatments can be done in cement mixers or 55 gallon drum setups that have been rigged to be rotated by hand in order to get even coverage.  For smaller jobs, you can simply using a 'shake and bake' style bag to get even dispersed coverage over the surface of the seeds you are trying to treat.

Soybeans

treated soybeans

We've witnessed yield responses in soybeans when the seeds are treated with a biological inoculant. Along with tricoderma and some bacterial inoculants, we've seen consistent results by placing mycorrhizal fungi on the seed and again in the seed trench at time of planting. We will detail the results we've seen in the field from the use of mycorrhizae on the pages that follow regarding the use of fungi to extend the root mass and uptake of nutrients and water in crops.

Wheat 

treated winter wheat

Wheat seeds have a higher surface area to volume than either a soybean or corn seed, and so, when treating seeds with either liquid or dry chemical or biological treatments we will need to factor that into our calculations of cost per acre.  The increased surface area means we will need more of the seed treatment for a given volume of seed.

Corn

treated corn seed -- notice the red color

Seed treatments for corn are getting more popular.  Not just are commercial seed treators continuing to treat seeds to ward off fungal disease and other common pathogens, but growers are starting to realize that treating corn seed is one of the most consistently high R.O.I.s they can accomplish with their corn crop.

Seed Treatment Guide

Eventually on this site I will create a general guide available for download which will detail results for different seed treatment regimens as observed in the field and in various studies.  I would also like to categorize any yield or return on investment (ROI) results that I can ascertain from side by side and replicated studies done both in the field and in a university setting.

The guide will cover different treatments and techniques for different crops, in different soil types and in different climates.