Imagine it’s spring and your grower customers are anxiously awaiting soil temperatures to enter the 50s. When it does, they are ready to roll, and you better be too. As they open that big black box or watch the seed pour into the planter, their hopes for a successful and profitable growing season hinge on the seed in front of them. While it might make you and growers feel good to see evenly coated seed with a nice sheen, appearance doesn’t indicate efficacy of what’s on the seed. Previously, I’ve used the saying that “redder is not always better,” and that’s true but it doesn’t matter what color you use.
Appearance doesn’t tell us anything — all it does is make us feel good. Just like the saying “we shouldn’t judge a book by the cover,” we shouldn’t judge a seed treatment by its appearance. So how should we judge a seed treatment application?
Knowing the accuracy of a seed treatment and the actual amount of active ingredient per seed is complex. In the case of soybeans, specifically, the active ingredient is applied at a specified amount per seed; it doesn’t matter if it’s a big seed or a little seed. Each seed gets the same amount of active ingredient, but this doesn’t necessarily make for a visually appealing seed. Some seed will be darker and some seed will be lighter. That’s the nature of treating seed on a per seed basis — it doesn’t mean that you aren’t following the label rate. In fact, it’s just the opposite and we can show that internally and with farmers through transparency in data.
Technology advances allow us to print out a report and all the data that accompany that seed for internal purposes but also for customers so they can know what’s actually on that seed. The only way to get past the visual inspection is with numbers. With hard data that comes from real-time application recordings. This is automation. This is transparency. This is not the future, it’s today.
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