The main purpose of seed dressing is to prevent possible future crop losses. For what purpose, pesticides are applied to the seed, which will protect in the early stages from certain pathogens.
Treatment is qualitative where the rate of treatment is not exceeded by more than 10%, and the uniformity of processing of all seeds is at least 10%.
Equipment that transports seeds should not damage them. If the treatment process includes a thermal component, it should not be reflected in the result on seed germination.
Today, automated plants are used for seed dressing, in which the process of feeding the working solution and seeds is controlled by electronics.
Treaters with mixing devices are divided into screw and drum. Direct application method treaters are divided on the chamber and rod. Technologically, all actions performed during processing are divided into three stages:
Usually, the working parts of treaters include:
The production process is as follows. Seeds enter the loading device, after which the screw mechanism fed them into the treatment area. Next, planting material is fed into the processing bunker. There are different options for processing grains. How exactly it will occur depends on the structural features of this particular mechanizm. Upon completion of processing, seeds are removed from the treatment area and poured out into the vehicle or storage bags.
To preserve germination, seeds should not be damaged by a screw. Studies conducted in this direction showed that the largest number of seeds remain viable when the steel auger is protected by a polyethylene coating. A comparison of the germination of seeds that have passed through a steel auger, coated steel and not treated at all has shown that pure steel gives a reduction in germination of 5-7%. While the polyethylene coating practically did not damage the seed.
Another important processing parameter is the auger rotation speed - it should not exceed 370 rpm.
