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Growers are
demanding: |
- Superior
sowing ability
- Earlier
emergence and high germination rate
- Uniform
emergence
- Higher
percentage of usable transplants
- Seeds that
are free from seed born diseases
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Newest
developments in tomato priming
Tomato, both for
processing and fresh market, has become one of the most
important crops in agriculture.
Growers are
continually being innovative by direct seeding into the field as
well as growing plants in the green house. By either growing
in the field or obtaining the highest quality greenhouse plants
available, growers wish to protect their future success at
harvest time.
Tomato cultivars
today have to compete in an ultra competitive market, and the
seeds from these cultivars have to fulfill even more
qualifications than the seeds of their predecessors.
This process can
only start with the seed and that seed’s ability to grow up into
a viable plant.
It is well
documented that not all seeds are built alike, and in fact some
seeds just do not have what it takes to make a viable plant.
INCOTEC with its newest seed
enhancement technology in upgrading, priming and disinfection of
tomato seed, may help growers
make the right choice to produce a plant that has the potential
to make a marketable difference at harvest.
INCOTEC over the
years has used its enhancement technology to continually improve
the quality of tomato plants that the grower can grow from each
seed lot.
Our fully
accredited seed lab first checks each received seed lot.
This is to verify that the seed meets the quality standards
required for the priming enhancement technology.
If necessary, the seed can first
be upgraded using the newest technology, to obtain the maximum
germination capacity.
Click HERE to read article about UPGRADING.
Based on having high quality seed, priming technology can then
be applied to optimize the germination energy, uniformity and
the germination capacity under non-optimal conditions, leading
to a maximum stand under a range of conditions.
Safe Priming
 As
breeders continue to produce new cultivars, other issues have
arisen in the process of growing tomato seedlings. Since 1995,
Incotec recognizes the Blind Plant problem. This is a tomato
disorder affecting the growing point.
Click HERE to read the article about
TOMATO BLIND PLANTS.
Although it is still not known exactly what causes the
blindness, it is clear that several factors may contribute to
the occurrence of blind plants. Among them are conditions during
seed production, germination and plant growth. Moreover, also
priming conditions can have a objectionable effect; in sensitive
cultivars increases of 25% have been observed. For this reason,
Incotec developed a safe tomato priming that will not increase
the incidence of Blind Plants and still allows for increased
uniformity and speed of germination.
Clean
priming
 Another
phenomenon that might occur during priming is the growth of
natural micro-organisms present on the original seed lot. At
INCOTEC we value your tomato seed as much as you do. Therefore
we have recognized the importance to develop novel procedures
to treat your seed in such a way that we are able to control the
natural micro-organisms population level during our priming
treatments.
This would give
the added assurance that pathogenic organisms below detectable
level in the original lot, are not increased after priming. The
overall effect is an even better response to priming and cleaner
seed.
Good seed
production practices do not always guarantee a disease free crop
as various factors could lead to seed borne infection. Two major
quarantine organisms documented for tomato are Clavibacter
michiganensis subsp. michiganensis (bacterial canker)
and Xanthomonas vesicatoria (bacterial spot).
These two
pathogens are found world wide and cause serious losses by
either killing the young plants or reducing marketable yields to
both greenhouse and field tomato crops.
Strict world wide
governmental regulations, that limit the use of pesticides, are
making it even harder to obtain disease free seed lots.
INCOTEC’s product range eXccit has
proven itself on Brassica for a number of years.
Recently an eXccit treatment, in which priming and
disinfection technologies are both combined and fine-tuned to
complement one another, has been developed for tomato. eXccit
can effectively eradicate (which means the presence of the
bacteria on the sample taken after treatment is below detectable
level with present test methods) both Clavibacter and
Xanthomonas on infected tomato seed lots, with the added
benefit of improved seed germination characteristics together
with a slight increase in speed of emergence after treatment.
INCOTEC does not
offer just a priming, it offers a range of specialized methods
which can be fine tuned to your specific wishes and needs.
Another
advantage in using INCOTEC’S newest priming technology on
tomatoes is that it can be combined with existing tomato
products.
The quality coatings of our tomato
pellets not only improve the sowability of the seed, but also
allow for the optimized exchange of both water and oxygen to the
seed itself.
These combinations provide you the grower the total
package to meet your planting needs. |
