Newspapers / The Journal-Patriot (North Wilkesboro, … / March 16, 1950, edition 1 / Page 15
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- MAKES SEED EASIER TO PLANT Street Journal . Chicago — Carrots that require no thinning, corn that can he ■own two weeks early without being harmed by cold weather, to matoes that don't need trans planting: These are a few of the innovations in (arming and back yard gardening that have been made possible by a new way of preparing seeds. Under the new method, seeds are coated or "pelleted". Their eoating nukes even microscopic ally small seeds big enough bo they can be planted one at a time and spaced-bo there are no excess plants to thin out. Inert ingredi ents such as powdered feldspar or volcanic ash add bulk to the tiny seeds. Chemicals Included in the coating make plants grow faster, keep Beeds alive during very dry or wet weather, act as a counter agent against weed-killers and even shoo crows away. Pelleted seeds aim to giro ama teur farmers a greater output with leas back-breaking hoeing and digging. Tltey promise to trim costs for oommerical grow ers. By paving the way for In creased .mechanisation, they should boost farm machinery sales. Chemical companies should reap returns from the demand for coating ingredients. Oonuwsilsl Bales Began Last Tear While the new process is only now moving out of the experi mental stage. Processed Seeds, Inc., of Midland, Mich., and Fil trol Corp. of Los Angeles, began selling pelleted seeds commerc ially last fall. Coated seeds wejre listed in the 1948 catalogs of two seed Houses. Burgees Seed and Plant Co. offered 21 different varieties of pelleted vegetable and flower seeds and Cornell Seed Co. sold pelleted tomato seeds to commercial growers. A third firm, Crow's Hybrid Com Co., of HOOVER REPORTS ON HIS CATCH i 'J. & I FORMER PRESIDENT Herbert C. Hoover poses with his grandson, Andy, and the two bmiefish he took in a day's angling off Key Largo, Ela. One of the fish weighs seven pounds; the other, three. He will enter them in the Metropolitan Miami fishing tourney. (International Soundphoto) Milford, 111., coated all the seed corn it sold this year. Next year, other firms are ex pected to handle coated seeds. Ferry Morse, one of the biggest in the seed business, for example, reports it has been "experiment ing aggressively" with pelleted seeds and "hopes to offer them for the first time about a year from now." If you've ever grown carrots in your garden, you can appreciate the advantages of a process that make4 small seeds big. .The seeds are so tiny that you scatter them along the row, far too generous ly fpr best result. If, like many gardener, you can't bear to thin out and detroy many of the lux uriant young plants, you end up by getting carrots about as big around as a toothpick. Using pea-sized pelleted seeds, you plant your carrots an inch or so apart. There's no thinning to do and you get big sturdy carrots. Commercial carrot growers not only save on seed but also don't have to pay for labor to do the thinning. A 60 per cent saving in thin ning costs, which average $15 to | $20 an acre, and a 10 per cent higher yield resulted when tests were run by Flltrol with coated I head lettuce seed, in California. There were also 40 per cent more I premium heads in the acreage I sown with coated seeds, the com pany reports. Two pounds of un coated seed were normally sown [per acre: only five ounces of coat ed seed (excluding the weight of the coating) were needed for the same. area. Tobacco growers may stand to benefit, too, Tobacco seed is so I small growers dump a teaspoon Iful into a watering can, then I sprinkle; the seed bed. When the I plants are all an inch or two high I they are transplanted to a cold I frame. Then they must be trans I planted a second time into the [field. Pelleted tobacco seed is big I enough so on® step can be skip Iped. The seed can be planted di Irectly in the ooldframe. Govern I ment and private experts are test ling this new process. Flower Planting Aided 1 Flowers also offer a fertile I field for pelleted seeds. Petunias, I for example, have seeds about lone-third the sixe of a P*n head. I There are 200,000 of tbiem to the {ounce. Some fancier varieties are I worth more than ten times their (weight in sold. They wholesale I for as much as $400 an ounce. I Planting the bare seeds individu I ally is impossible. But when I coated, thfey can be sown one at la time as readily as peas or beans. I Thinning or transplanting is un I necessary. I Have you ever tried to get I sweet corn a little before your I neighbor by sowing it several I weeks early? Unless you had a I run of unseasonably warm wea Ither, most of the corn probably I didn't even germinate. Several I seed firms have run tests that I show bow not only corn, but also I peas and beans behove in cold I weather after being pelleted. In lone such test, sweet corn was I planted in a chamber where the I temperature could be accurately I controlled. For 14 days, the tem Iperature was kept at 46 degrees: then it was raised to 86 degrees for eight days. Only 16 per cent of the untreated corn germinated. Varying mixtures of ingredients were used on the selected teed, the heet of which produced IS per I ^ CwSSrSbrid' Corn Co; claims that on the average, coating | give, a yield 10 tart*, an Mrs <•' -: greater than that obtainable from untreated seed. % In addition to keeping seeds alive when it's cold, the coating helps lick other weather uncer tainties. Seeds die when there's too much rain. But pelleted seeds will lire through the heavest soakings. Last spring for ex ample, water stood on a field near Saginaw, Mich., for 15 days. Both' pelleted and bare sugar beet seed had been planted In the there isn't enough, rain. Eatreme dryness, for example, is a tough | problem In the semi-arid sections 'of the west. Range grasses, when. I planted from seed, often don't germinate if there's a run of dry weither after they're Continued In Next Issue fc, % O . 7 >»»wrt Red Or^
The Journal-Patriot (North Wilkesboro, N.C.)
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March 16, 1950, edition 1
15
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