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Seed Coatings: The Untapped Potential in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything
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  soilless cultivation, grown plants without soil.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and today we're talking about an area that is
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  almost never talked about in hydroponics and very rarely talked about in horticulture.
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  Especially in Europe and in America really,
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  and that is seed coating or seed dressing and
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  especially in hydroponic crops
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  this is something that's rarely undertaken but actually
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  there's potential there's massive potential
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  there both for improving cultivation and also
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  commercially so there's opportunities
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  for people to start businesses around this i think in
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  hydroponics it could be a real big growth area but
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  at the moment it's very neglected it's a blue ocean as
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  they say in business schools there's not many
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  people doing this in arable crops it's really
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  standard and if you've got a biostimulant or
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  a pesticide or a fertilizer it's very.
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  Difficult to get your product dressed or coated
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  onto a seed because there's so many other products competing
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  for the seed dressing in arable field-based
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  crops because it's so important and the reason why seed
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  dressings are so important in arable crops broad acre
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  agriculture is because it's very uneconomical to
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  apply chemicals to hectares and hectares and hectares
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  it's easy just to get it on the seed all the
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  you know the tuber that the propagation
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  material as it goes into the ground and so if it can last
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  for a long time or even just a few days or a few weeks then
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  that's beneficial whereas in horticulture we tend to just douse everything
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  foliar sprays or root wrenches but there's real
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  potential for seed coatings and i think both scientifically and also to make
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  seeds look much better so whether it's about protecting your seeds delivering
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  nutrients or priming your plants for future attack seed coatings are a potentially
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  massively powerful tool in modern horticulture.
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  And so it's not just for field scale growing there's
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  plenty for greenhouse growers microgreens even and also
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  grow grow tent growers so what is
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  a seed coating at its core seed coating is
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  the process of applying a layer or a series of
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  layers or materials to the surface of the seed now i'm
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  no expert in this but i've got
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  a few youtube videos about it and people come to
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  me and ask me questions about seed coatings more quite
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  often so i must be like one of the google or
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  youtube must think that i am an expert when it comes to seed coatings because
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  i get asked to coat seeds quite often and i don't like doing it because i'm
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  not an expert if anyone is an expert and i always worry because the big danger
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  is applying a liquid and then the seeds germinating too quickly and then losing
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  viability but you can do it and you can do it in a way that doesn't result in that.
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  And what might you coat a seed with well you
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  could color it with just a pigment you could coat it with just a pigment
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  to make it colorful you could put a layer of protective
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  clay around it or even plastic but i wouldn't advise
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  that because that's obviously microplastics going into the environment you
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  could put a cocktail of nutrients fungicides and hormones onto
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  the seed or you could form a complete pellet that
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  gives the tie this the tie a tiny seed a
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  manageable shape and that is very
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  popular we'll talk about that so what
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  are the goals better germination targeted targeted
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  delivery of treatments pest resistance and ease
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  of handling so what can we add we can add fungicides and
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  insecticides to protect the seed from soil-borne threats
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  particularly so you might have a number of
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  fungicides even a nematocytes something like
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  this fertilizing nutrients particularly phosphorus zinc
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  and manganese are very popular as seed dressings you might
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  include include beneficial microbes rhizobacteria you
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  might put on free living fungi like trichoderma mycorrhizal
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  fungi are very popular and and i've for
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  this you need the spore forms so there's a company called symbio symbiome they're
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  from the chet republic make sure they're from the chet republic symbio m from
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  the chet republic and they produce micro mycorrhizal spores So these are not
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  the type of mycorrhizae you add to the growing media.
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  Those are propagule-based. You want spore-based. And then what we do is we put
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  a chitosan polymer on after that here at Eutrema,
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  like a hydrogel polymer to hold the water around the seeds and to hold the spores
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  onto the seeds so they don't just fly off because the spores are just delivered as a dust.
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  And we use a cement mixer, nothing more fancy than a cement mixer,
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  and we've done millions and millions of materials.
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  Carrot seeds using this method and they all went up to scotland all
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  the organic carrot seeds were coated like
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  that so that was really good it wasn't a trial it
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  was actually a a professional contract we had and we've got some more potential
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  professional contracts coming this way from north america so that'd be interesting
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  for if you're growing in acid or alkaline soils you can even put buffering agents
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  in there to um to control the ph obviously that's not needed in hydroponics
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  but that's interesting.
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  And we said about putting the pigments on. Obviously, people might be interested
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  in having a fancy colour.
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  There's a lot about colour theory and what people think is premium or naff or
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  energetic based on the colour and things like that.
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  So like purple colours might say premium, green colours you might think,
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  oh, that's natural and things like this.
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  But actually, a lot of the pigments are there to deter birds from eating them or in nature.
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  In maize and smaller seeds they
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  they can actually be so that if you
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  spill the seeds you know where they are so if you're a farmer you've
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  got all these seeds then you can you can you can find where your spillages are
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  and also to stop people from eating them then to differentiate between say maize
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  for food production or animal feed and and and seed that has had fungicide and.
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  Pesticide applied to it ready for sowing.
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  So the caller can say, beware, don't eat this.
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  And then there can also be priming agents like jasmonic acid,
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  which we're going to talk about now.
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  So Lancaster University, Jason Moore, and people like that.
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  There in lancaster university a few about a decade ago
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  looked at applying jasmonic acid to seeds to
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  sort of prime them for defense responses so
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  you could this is like a a it's a bit
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  like salicylic acid it induces plant immune defenses
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  induces systemic resistance so increases.
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  Resistance to caterpillars aphids red spider mites
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  and works across a number of crops like tomato
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  sweet corn even sweet potato apparently and
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  so requires no ongoing spraying or external treatment so
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  you can almost like immunize your plants against
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  pest and disease by applying jasmonic acid the downside
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  of that is that jasmonic acid is really expensive then
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  we talked about pelleting you can fully encapsulate a seed to make
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  it with an inert clay also with pigment
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  that's really good for tiny seeds or machine sowing
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  or adding protection for fragile seeds i bought
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  a lot of seeds from south korea and
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  they were because i wanted to make my own kimchi there was
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  a couple of issues around that it involved me
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  having nearly a physical fight with somebody in my village and
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  i never ended up making my kimchi but yeah we
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  all the seeds came as pellets and
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  i thought that was really interesting because you wouldn't if you were
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  growing cabbages and radishes in the uk
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  your seeds definitely wouldn't come as a round
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  clay pellet and i think that's a massive area
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  where if you could if you could if you could get hydroponic seeds
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  and you could you could pellet them and improve their vigor and viability and
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  their their health after germination by putting them in a clay pellet with fertilizers
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  and other ingredients biostimulants then that's a major win I think there's a massive area there.
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  If you could partner with one of these seed companies, you could make a killing
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  because it would be unique to them.
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  That would be these special seeds. You could upsell for this particular seeds
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  that are pelleted and protected.
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  I think there's a massive potential win there.
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  Maybe they've looked at it already and they don't want to do it,
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  but I think there's a massive win there.
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  As I said, you could just go for a pigment to mark
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  that it's been pesticide treated to deter birds or
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  help to know where you've seen where you've sown them you
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  know sometimes i'm sowing seeds that are
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  black into or brown into cocoa and
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  i'm like where have i put one in there where's that one gone so it helps you
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  know where you've sown the seeds that they're colorful as well so and then if
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  you've got blends of different seeds so you're growing microgreens having different
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  colored seeds helps you know whether the blend is mixed well so beware though
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  that not every coloured seed is treated. Some pigments are.
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  It could be natural and also they could be
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  due to the pesticide itself or or the nutrient itself
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  so like copper would appear blue wouldn't it
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  so so there's
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  plenty of pros and cons for pelleting and pigmenting
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  and things like this and easier sowing of fragile seeds better
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  establishment rates target delivery of nutrients
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  protection early stage pest resistance automatic
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  automation compatibility so if you're growing if you
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  have self-filling seeding machines into
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  your plugs and things like this then the consistency
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  of seed would be fantastic obviously there's a cost disadvantage coating seeds
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  is significantly more expensive so you're going to have to make sure that they're
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  well worth it and the shelf life may vary depending on the coating material
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  plenty of experiments and trials would need to be done and they could potentially
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  delay water uptake if there's.
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  A clay coating so you need to make sure that that's not
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  the case so yeah i would
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  the reason i'm interested in seed coating today is
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  because as i say at utreema we've got a number of
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  interesting products and some of them can be used a seed
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  coating so we've done mycorrhizal coating with chytosan or
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  biofungicide however the one that really
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  interests me at the moment is our slugger product and we
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  developed slugger because it's the number one pest pest in
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  amateur horticulture in the uk you go into someone's garden the number one pest
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  would be slugs or snails and so we developed a liquid ferric phosphate product
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  that deters slugs fantastic the problem is it's quite expensive and not only does that deter a lot of.
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  Gardeners who aren't at the top of their game it means
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  it's not applicable for applying large to large
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  areas of the uk where slugs are a big problem in like
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  wheat and oil seed rape as it's or
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  canola as it's known in north america and so
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  we can't just spray it on fields to control slugs where pellets would normally
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  be used and but what we could do potentially is coat the seeds and i thought
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  i had this brainwave last friday and i thought we could coat the seeds as a
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  seed coating and that could protect the delicate seedling in the first few days of its growth.
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  So today I've been spraying wheat and oilseed rapeseeds with our slugger product
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  and then drying them really quickly so that it doesn't induce germination and
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  then in a couple of days time we'll germinate those seeds and see if A,
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  they germinate after they've been treated with a big dose of slugger
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  liquid ferric phosphate and then
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  we'll compare that to uncoated seeds
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  and then we'll expose them to a few slugs and
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  see if the treated seeds have been given
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  significant protection against being eaten by
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  slugs and snares and if that works then fantastic and
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  we can look at developing that into a commercial service or
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  product that people could use and so that's seed coating
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  so that's the podcast for today
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  it's all about seed coating if we haven't
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  talked about priming priming is where you sort of give the plants half the conditions
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  they need to germinate but not all the conditions they need to germinate and
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  that's very very difficult to perform and maybe one for another episode i wouldn't
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  mess around with priming if you had very precious seeds because it's unless
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  you really knew what you were doing because you could.
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  Rather than go just giving them some of the conditions you need for germination
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  you could give them all the conditions you need for germination that's why when
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  i do a seed coating I make sure when I get them wet, I only get them slightly
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  damp, and then I dry them instantaneously.
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  As well as that, I talked about previously on the podcast that if you're in
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  the UK and you would like a free sample of any of the eutreema products,
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  I'm more than happy to send a free sample if you buy any other product on the eutreema website.
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  So say you're interested in liquid gold, as it's called in the UK.
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  Gold leaf in the US, then if you bought a litre of that, then if you also wanted
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  to try humic acid, I'll send you a sample of humic acid as well.
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  That's only for podcast listeners you can literally
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  have a sample of anything you want off the websites when you
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  buy any other product i don't advertise that to
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  anyone else apart from listeners because that's a reward to you
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  guys for helping me grow the podcast and if you're outside
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  of the uk then the other opportunity at the
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  moment is we're looking for distributors and wholesalers
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  of our products we have an amazing range
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  of unique products like the slugger product like liquid gold
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  like our concentrated salicylic acid these
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  are products that you won't find a product it's not
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  they're just they're not just unique because like anyone can make
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  a unique product by slightly tweaking a formulation no one's
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  got a product that comes even close to having the active ingredients in
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  that we've got at utreema so there's real potential there
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  for distribution globally so i would definitely check
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  out the utreema website if you're in any way connected
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  to any distribution networks outside of the uk so that's
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  been hydroponics daily for today as we say you can use biopolymers
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  to coat them you can use pellets you can
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  apply pesticides fertilizers biostimulants or even plant hormones and if you're
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  interested if you think this is interesting you want to talk about it more commercially
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  if you want to talk about setting up a company to do that i'm more than happy
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  to help people set up commercial operations if you and it's just running advice
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  by me. You don't need to give me any shares or anything like that.
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  Until tomorrow, that's been Hydroponics Daily. Thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.