|
Seed treatments- Not just for storage anymore
By Larry Dreiling Time was, seed treatments were sometimes considered an expensive extra expense for seed. Usually, seed treatments were used as preventatives for insect control for stored seed. That isn't the case anymore. Today, seed treatments are considered the norm forSoybeansand corn. Use of wheat seed treatments prior to planting, also is on the increase. Producers are using more treated seed because treated seed fights off below ground pests, making crops emerge stronger and more uniform. There's a large list of insects in wheat alone that seed treatments can tackle, according to Kansas State University entomologists Phil Sloderbeck, J.P. Michoud, and Bob Whitworth in their annual guide to wheat insect management. They report seed treatments can be used to fight false wireworm, true wireworms and white grubs below ground. They can be used to stop foliar pests like greenbugs, Russian wheat aphid, English grain aphids, bird cherry-oat aphid, rose grain aphid and Hessian fly. Certain kinds of seed treatments can be used to reduce early season grasshopper damage. Because they stop these pests, seed treatments may reduce the vector for barley yellow dwarf virus, since by the time most producers see the virus in their fields, the pests like bird cherry-oat aphid have already done their damage. "Conventional sprays usually are not effective in reducing virus incidence," the K-State entomologists note. However, they note several products, including Gaucho and Cruiser, seem to reduce viral infections by suppressing aphid colony treatment. Seed treatments have grown up to be an essential part of a producer's toolbox for success and a young plant's best friend, offering early season disease protection and long-lasting insecticidal protection that moves within the plant tissue. "Barley yellow dwarf, loose smut, what can you do if you see them after heading? Nothing," said Matt Keating, Kearney, Neb., based sales representative for Syngenta. AgriPro wheat is a division of Syngenta, and Keating is encouraging AgriPro wheat sales partners to treat their wheat prior to sale. "Farmers who pay good money for seed want to go with seed treatments these days because they do make sense." As hopes for the 2007 wheat crop improved, many producers decided to return some acres to wheat. They also started looking at using more treated seed. "With the increase in wheat acres in the last year, we decided to buy a new treater and started looking at other opportunities and we encouraged farmers to try a seed treatment and ended up treating a lot of wheat," said John Watts, a certified crop advisor and seed division manager at the Farmers Cooperative Association of Manhattan, Kan. "Years ago we started off applying seed treatments to soybeans, applying a fungicide or some kind of insecticide, which has really reached a high degree of acceptance.cornand now wheat also are finding a market. Farmers are becoming more serious than ever about their seed investments." Watts puts his money where his mouth is, setting aside fields at his family's farm near Emporia, Kan., to perform side-by-side testing of seed treatments and to hold field days to show how seed treatments perform. "On the tough conditions we had last year, our wheat tests showed an increase of three bushels to the acre with an insecticide-fungicide combination seed treatment. In our part of the country, that's important," Watts said. "On treatedcornseed, we came up with a three-bushel increase. On soybeans, it was five bushels to the acre. That's upwards of a six-to-one return on investment." Pulling plant samples of Jagalene wheat from a side-by-side test at his farm, Watts is proud to show the differences between treated and untreated seed. "The wheat is a lot more uniform and there's quicker emergence on all crops. There's two or three times more root mass on wheat that's treated. That's more ability to pick up nutrients and moisture. More roots mean the ability to handle stress better," said Watts, who said he is working with BASF in testing Charter seed treatment. "It's already got more tillers than the untreated. It looks two weeks ahead of the untreated. There's a noticeable height difference. I would think it's a lot healthier plant and something that could give you an increased yield." Also, taking the proactive approach of using a seed treatment can mean fewer operations and less labor costs, particularly on those occasions when wet spring weather can force replanting of fall crops. "A lot of times on soybeans, you may see as much as 60 percent replant. Minus tech fees, it still costs a producer," Watts said. "Every seven days from the ideal planting date is taking away from your yields. By the time you replant, it's costing you yields anyway, let alone the fact you are having to make another trip across the fields to burn it down. "The bulk of our replants, maybe 90 percent, around here were on non-treated acres. This small investment of seed treatment is a good insurance policy." Adding seed treatment is a cost some producers have historically said, "no" to. Some cost as much as the historic price of wheat, about $3, to treat a bushel of seed. Keating, however, makes a strong argument. "Is a seed treatment the answer for everything a crop needs? No. A bump of just a couple of bushels doesn't sound like very much," Keating said. "Incrementally, you take the 50,000 bushels the average farmer will gain in yields over five years and that's a lot of money." A good seed treatment, Watts said, allows the seed to do what it's supposed to do and let it ward off problems it might otherwise have. "Sure it needs to rain and have the right amount of sun and all the things that are out of our control, but seed treatments help increase plant health and make the most of your seed investment. Seed, whatever it is, is not cheap these days, but when you can get a three-to-one up to a six-to-one return on investment depending on yield it's worth it."
Larry Dreiling can be reached by phone at 785-628-1117 or by e-mail at ldreiling@aol.com. Date: 5/3/07
Copyright/Privacy
Copyright 1995-2008. High Plains Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Any republishing of these pages, including electronic reproduction of the editorial archives or classified advertising, is strictly prohibited. If you have questions or comments you can reach us at High Plains Journal 1500 E. Wyatt Earp Blvd., P.O. Box 760, Dodge City, KS 67801 or call 1-800-452-7171. Email: webmaster@hpj.com |
| |||||||||||||||||||||
