<font color=DarkOrange>Another article on those coated soybeans.
September 5, 2000
Coated Seeds for Farming
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
M&M's melt in your mouth (and not in
your hands!) because, as the old TV
commercial said, they are covered by
a thin candy shell.
A Purdue University agronomist is testing
whether a similar idea will work for seeds as a
means of increasing farm efficiency. Using a
thin polymer coating developed by the Landec
Corporation of Menlo Park, Calif., the
agronomist, Dr. Tony J. Vyn, is testing
whether coated seeds can be used to help farmers overlap winter wheat and
soybeans in the same field.
Relay planting, as the technique is known, is practiced with wheat and
soybeans in southerly parts of the Midwest. The problem in more northerly
parts, like Wisconsin and northern parts of Indiana and Illinois, is that
planting the soybeans early enough so that the existing wheat stalks are not
damaged by the planting machinery often results in soybean plants that are
too spindly and high when the wheat harvest takes place. Thus much of the
soybean crop is destroyed in harvesting the wheat.
The polymer-coated seeds, which should be on the market in a few years,
work like a time-release aspirin, delaying seed germination by about two
weeks until heat and moisture in the soil break down the coating. That would
allow farmers to plant soybeans early, without damaging the wheat, and yet
produce soybean plants that are short enough to be missed when the wheat
combine cuts through the field.
Dr. Vyn said that the coating could also include a fungicide to ward off mold
that can rot seeds. Fungicides maintain their activity longer in colder soil, so
putting a coated seed into the ground earlier would have the added advantage
of protecting it longer.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company |
