Seed treatment agents urgently need to push through the old and bring forth the new

In recent years, under the demand of large-scale agricultural management and provincial industrial agriculture, the market of seed treatment agents has developed rapidly. At the fourth high-level seminar on seed treatment and pest control held in Wuhan a few days ago, experts agreed that the market for seed treatment agents in China has great potential for development, but at present, most of the seed treatment agents on the market are old products, and the dosage forms are relatively single. The scope of use is narrow, the seed treatment market urgently needs to be promoted, and the innovation of products should be accelerated.

What is the current market situation of seed treatment agents? The data of the Pesticide Control Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture show that it shows several major characteristics. At present, there are 370 registered products of seed treatment agents, 43 kinds of active ingredients, accounting for only 1% of the total registered pesticide products, and the number of varieties only accounts for 3%. On the other hand, there are about 101 kinds of registered formulations, with a small number of active ingredients, a large number of old products, and a large number of registered types of Fokker, tebuconazole, Dofok, imidacloprid, Dofu and carbosulfan. The number of registered products of these six formulations accounts for 46%. The repetition rate is high; the proportion of suspended seed coating agent is 75%, and the relative dosage form is single. The scope of registered use is relatively narrow, with 86% of products registered for corn, wheat, cotton and rice, and 98% of the total for soybeans and peanuts. The active ingredient is single, only carbofuran registers 183 products.

Dr. Zhu Chunyu of the Pesticide Inspection Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture said that in recent years, the number of product registration of seed treatment agents has increased steadily, and the number of new dosage forms such as seed treatment dispersible powders and microcapsule suspensions has increased significantly, but there is still a large gap compared with Europe and the United States, and the seed treatment market urgently needs to be promoted.

"the processing technology level of related preparation products still needs to be improved, and film-forming technology, sustained-release technology and dose accuracy should be improved in order to reduce the shedding rate and improve safety; and the current scope of use of seed treatment agents is relatively narrow. many crops lack special seed treatment agents, such as vegetables, tobacco, rape and other high value-added cash crops." Zhu Chunyu said.

"the product system of seed treatment agents is in urgent need of innovation." Yang Qiong, seed processing business manager of Bayer crop Science, said that at present, the market share of insecticidal and bactericidal compound agents in China's seed treatment agent market is close to 50% in 2013, and new nicotine products such as thiazide and imidacloprid will be the main products. Carbofuran will also occupy a certain market share for a period of time. At present, the seed coating rate of the United States, Japan, Israel and other countries is more than 95%. With the increasing desire of farmers for labor saving and yield improvement, the demand for high-quality seed treatment agents is increasing, and the mixing of multiple crude drugs with high efficiency, low toxicity and safety will be the development trend in the future.

"the research and application of biological seed coating agents are of great significance to improve the disease and insect resistance of plants at seedling stage." Qiu Dewen, deputy director of the Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, pointed out that plant immune inducers provide a new way and strategy for seed coating agents. At present, the application technology of plant immune inducer can be realized by seed treatment, such as seed soaking, seed dressing and coating to improve seed germination rate and maintain strong seedlings.

In view of the main problems of seed coating agents at present, Yuan Huizhu, a researcher at the Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, suggested that we can effectively avoid the risk of seed treatment agents by using high-quality pesticides, reducing the use of organic solvents, avoiding the sensitive period of seed germination, using microcapsules through slow release, and adding plant growth regulators.