NISKU Alta. – You don’t have to wait to see the day when all fertilizer and crop protection products are applied to the seed, according to Bob Graham of Graham Seeds in Olds, Alta.
“It’s not something that’s coming around the bend. It’s here today,” said Graham.
“All you have to do is travel to California where the state legislature told vegetable growers they must halt all field application of fertilizer and crop protection products. They had two choices: shut down the vegetable industry or figure out a way to apply everything to the seed.”
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
Their first step was to lower the product toxicity toward the seed so they could increase the applied dosage. With vegetable seeds costing up to $400 per ounce, nobody wanted to risk harming the seeds.
Another challenge was to extend the activity of the seed treatment as late as possible into the growing season. Graham said some seed-applied insecticides in cotton can last six weeks into the growing season.
“You get very good cost effectiveness anytime you can deliver product coated on the seed. For one thing, you get the same or better protection with a much lower volume of product. You also lower your costs every time you eliminate a machinery pass,” Graham said.
“In the California vegetable industry, the cost of delivering crop protection product is now less than one-tenth the cost of field application. They totally eliminate both the weather windows and the machinery passes.
“The Europeans have been delivering micronutrients such as copper for a number of years, using seed treatments. The cost of their copper application on the seed is about five percent of a field application.”
In Montana, growers are able to suppress fusarium and mycotoxin buildups by getting adequate copper to the plant early in the season with a seed treatment.
Graham said cotton and rice growers in the United States had full seed treatment options available to them four years ago, while corn and soybean growers got the technology two years ago.
“Of course, cereals are considered more of a nuisance down there, so we know that cereals will be last on the list.”
Osmotic inhibitors will be another big seed-applied development for peas, lentils, soybeans and other pulse crops that have a natural tendency to overabsorb moisture and drown themselves in wet years.
Graham said the osmotic controls will limit the ability of a seed to take in moisture. Once it has as much moisture as it needs, further osmosis stops, even if it’s in standing water. When the field dries, the plant again resumes moisture absorption, but only at the predetermined rate. The treatment will cost about $1 per acre.
Howie Zander of BASF said seed treatment is its major focus.
“We are increasing our investment in seed treatments, fungicides and insecticides.”
Although he stopped short of predicting that the field sprayer would ever become obsolete, he did emphasize that the seed treater will play a bigger role in the future. Seed-applied products will continue to replace many of the crop protection products now applied in field by a sprayer.
“Seed-applied product is certainly the trend for that small handful of companies involved in leading edge research. For example, we now have seed-applied fungicides in our research pipeline that extend plant protection far into the growing season. That means a producer can actually eliminate spray applications.”
