INCOTEC offers a wide range of technologies in Japan including economic and high quality filmcoating. This is most attractive for large and medium sized seeds that need a protection against seed and soil-borne diseases during germination and emergence. The total volume processed is reaching 300 tons of seed per year.

A very high percentage of all products made by INCOTEC in Japan whether it be filmcoated, pelleted or upgraded raw seeds are primed. The germination energy is very important in this market as growers are very critical and follow plant emergence intensively. The climate in the Japanese archipelago differs dramatically from region to region and from season to season. Tolerance to stress indicated by high vigor is very important to all in the seed business and growers.

An example of this is eXccit priming of brassica seeds which eliminates Xanthomonas  campestris campestris on such seeds. Brassica seeds are a major export item for the Japanese seed business. eXccit priming is one of the tools available to the Japanese seed business to control this problem.

In Japan no commercial seed testing laboratory is available. This is a problem for especially the medium size and small seed companies as access to testing for seed-borne disease is limited.

INCOTEC Japan is providing to its customers the access to the services of the seed testing laboratory of NAKG. 

This is especially important for quality control on eXccit primed brassica’s and other species.

The experience of INCOTEC world-wide and the wide range of INCOTEC pelleting technologies make a fast development of pellets for new species possible.

The Japanese vegetable market is quite sophisticated with a wide variety of crops grown locally and a substantial import from countries like China, US, New Zealand, Europe. The consumers taste for new food items (especially of Italian origin) offers a change for innovative growers to capitalise on new crops. An example is rucola, a salad crop from Italy.

INCOTEC had to adapt its systems to apply Japanese language in the documentation for the customers and correct internal documentation of for instance variety names.

Laboratory testing of germination in trays.

The high cost of land and labor makes it impractical to erect a greenhouse or plastic house for germination testing in trays. A test was developed in the laboratory to grow seedlings to a large enough state to judge the number of useable plants.

The Japanese market has a significant number of vegetable species that are unknown or not common in Europe and the US. An example is burdock seed a major vegetable with 13,200 ha in Japan, known in the west only as a medicinal plant with almost no commercial production.

Stress tests and priming

Prediction of shelflife of the products by means of accelerated ageing tests or CD-tests is becoming a standard practice for some products.

The resistance to stress during storage, germination and emergence is one of the most important characteristics of seed. As farmers do not usually employ climate control automation, temperatures can be very high in tunnels used for seedling production, even in spring time. Also field crops like carrot and spinach are affected strongly by the high temperatures and occasionally heavy rains in summer.

In some regions acid soil is neutralised using lime and other minerals and mixed with other components to make seedling soil. This practice results in a high EC, which affects especially lower vigor lettuce seedlots.

Priming of seeds is often effective to solve these problems. In some cases the pellet or filmcoat needs to be adapted to maintain the best possible stress resistance of the primed seed.

Packing in bottles

Pellets are most commonly packed in clear plastic bottles. Customers and growers appreciate the nice presentation of the pellets through the plastic. These bottles are sealed with an aluminium seal and closed with a cap. INCOTEC is the only company using environmental friendly PP bottles.

Packing in plastic bags

Other pellets with high strength can be packed in plastic bags of a special laminate material. Bags are economic to use, easy to dispose and offer a nice presentation like the bottles.

Bunching onion and onion seeds are sown for historical reasons in a large pellet: 4.25 mm in size. Technically this is possible but not very economic with about double the production cost. Overtime the market could adapt to a smaller pellet, 3.5 mm, leading to economic and technical advantages.

Pellets of tomato and pepper seeds were reduced in size from 4.5 and 6.0 mm to 3.5 mm to fit the pneumatic sowing machines used in Japan and Korea.

Some sowing machines used in Japan and Korea utilise an unique sowing principle. Market leader for sowing of vegetable seeds is a sowing machine of Yazaki: Easy Seeder. This machine tends to crush pellets between the roll and the guiding plate. Increasing hardness of the pellet does not help, special pellet properties are needed to prevent this crushing from happening.