Seed treatment

With dressing or dressing or seed treatment is referred to in the agriculture and forestry as well as in landscaping and horticulture, the treatment of seeds and seedlings with pesticides to the seed or planting against diseases ( emergence diseases ) and from pests (usually insects or birds) to. protecting In addition, to be created by the seedling and later plant be protected by systemic agents in sap flow against attackers and promoted by fertilizers through staining good conditions for germination. Pathogens and pests are found both in and around the grain as well as in soil and in the ambient air, the seedling and young plants are particularly vulnerable.

The dressing seed is an ancient art; already 450 BC leek juice was used as a mordant, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used olive residue, ash, cypress onion stock or juice to disinfect seeds and thus protect against pathogens. In the Middle Ages manure was used as seed dressings. As of 1660 seeds were treated with sodium sulphate and copper with moderate success; 1740 were added copper sulphate and arsenic preparations and 1765, the Heißwasserbeize. End of the 19th century developed the very effective (but also very toxic ) mercury treatments that were in Germany until their ban in 1982 as "Universal pickling ". Since the 1970s, are less toxic, but still effective mordants for seeds and seedlings of the crop protection companies on the market (BASF, Bayer, Syngenta ). Admission is granted in Germany in accordance with the guidelines of the Plant Protection Act.

Grain and corn seeds are often denatured bird repellents and conspicuously colored, so as to prevent the accidental use as food or for food.

A special form of pickling is the pelleting; while the seed is surrounded by a shell of pesticides and fertilizers, so that each seed has a uniform weight and uniform in size. Pelleted seed is necessary for the precision drilling of eg sugar beet, so that the labor-intensive hoes for separating the beets can be omitted in the spring. The process is labor-and medium -saving and environmentally sound good in some respects, for 100 grams of active ingredient may be sufficient to treat the seed for one hectare.