Pat Michetti and Ken Getty have 10 dealers coating pulse seed for western Canadian farmers.
Five of their machines are mobile, which Michetti said they build for dealers at cost.
Farmers prefer the mobile machines, she added.
“The mobiles are set up to accommodate if he’s coming out of a bin, a semi or a tandem. We have three belt conveyors on board: one small jump belt, plus a large load and a large unload belt. Everything is handled gently and we don’t need to use the farmer’s equipment.”
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The mobile machine coats 1,000 bushels an hour. Michetti supplies the polymer and inoculant while the grower supplies his own seed treatment if he wants it included.
The polymer is applied with a spinning disc, below a rotary gate. The liquid mixture is applied as the seed is fed through the gate and the coated seed then travels through a 10 foot long hex drum, where a powder feeder applies the inoculant.
“That sprinkles the inoculant onto the coated seed, it’s mixed, then comes out the end of the machine, up the belt and into the grower’s truck or bin,” she said. “We use the Nitragen C, peat-based powder inoculant without sticker, because we have the polymer. The seed becomes wet with the polymer and seed treatment, then the inoculant gets ’embedded’ into the polymer, so it can encapsulate the peat.”
Michetti said Incotec has done a lot of viscosity and stability research with the L404 formulation, which is the key to a fast drying time.
“The seed is pretty much dry when it comes out of the discharge. By the time it’s in the truck or bin, it’s dry. We have no sticking. But we don’t like to treat when the temperature is below zero,” she said.
“Plus 5C and above is where we like to be. It’s easier to run. We feel we can start the middle of April, or earlier in southern Alberta.”
The polymer coating is more expensive than liquid or straight peat, but Michetti said she’s in line with farmers who use granular inoculant, in terms of cost, yield and healthy plants.
She charges $3.25 per bu. on lentils, $3.50 per bu. on chickpeas and $2.75 per bu. on peas.
“Because the seeding rate for peas is so high, we’ve lowered the price to create more interest,” she said.
“That includes the polymer coating, the inoculant and the application. It also includes the application of a seed treatment if they want it, but they provide the product. We also cover the cost of a rhizobia test.”
