Pelleting Of Seed

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30064, 23 February 1963, Page 7

Pelleting Of Seed

The committee of management of the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute has been concerned at reports of failures because of unsatisfactory lime pelleting of inoculated seed, according to the director of the institute (Mr L. W.' McCaskill). For this reason the next issue of the institute’s “Review” will contain a detailed description of how farmers can pellet their own seed.

The advice of the institute was that if farmers were not processing their own seed they should insist that the commercial firms, with which they were dealing, should guarantee that the seed was being treated according to the method developed by officers of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Mr McCaskill said that using this method Mr lan Wardell, .of Lake Pukaki, with one assistant, had lime pelleted and inoculated 30001 b of lucerne seed in one day. As the inoculum would live for three months using this method one mixture only was required for the sowing of 300 acres over a period of 18 days. The resulting establishment of the lucerne and development of nodules had been exceptionally good.

At the recent high-country field day held in the Lake Wanaka area Dr. I. D. Blair, reader in microbiology, at Lincoln College, emphasised the desirability of using limepelleted inoculated seed in tussock grassland sowings, and advised the use of methyl cellulose as a sticker as advocated by microbiologists of the Plant Diseases and Plant Chemistry Divisions of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, He said that farmers should insist that the inoculant they used was certified by the Department of Agriculture, as these certified inoculants were the only ones which were any use.