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As fewer planters are being sold with 2 X 2 or in-furrow application equipment, more farmers are looking for other ways to apply products like fertilizer, naturals or biologicals, and other inputs.
Since you likely need talc and graphite for your planter, the opportunity to add things to the seed with that application has opened the door for some new crop input products.
If you’re contemplating using one of these products on your farm this year, we’ll give you a few things to consider.
COVERAGE
It’s no big deal if a talc/graphite mix doesn’t equally cover each seed, as these products are for the planter, rather than the plant. However, if you’re adding a nutrient or a Natural product, that really should be on every single seed, so look at what kind of coverage you’re getting. Talc and graphite do a pretty good job provided you mix them throughout rather than just dumping them all in one big lump and hoping for the best. The key for coverage is static electricity. By dumping all the product in one big shot, the static electricity often gets wasted on itself.
By rationing the product out a little at a time, you maximize how much static electricity can be used to cling to each and every seed. CT Applicators have the best equipment for this. If you’re adding a dry product to seed on a regular basis, on a lot of acres, or both, I’d recommend getting one.
There is another ingredient in some of the talc solutions that helps with coverage, and it might surprise you – it’s zinc. For example, in Maxx NS, the zinc component is a trademarked product known as IONLOCK™ ZINC. It improves adhesion of cations like zinc, as well as microbes and other products in the mix, due to its unique encapsulation technology. On millions of acres in 2022 and 2023, IONLOCK™ ZINC has been shown to increase singulation performance in part due to excellent seed coverage.
NUTRIENTS
Speaking of zinc, delivering nutrients on the seed is something that can be helpful, but you want to watch exactly what nutrients are in the product, what form they’re in, and if they impact germination in any negative way. We’ve done trial work with molybdenum, for example, and have seen some good results. We’ve also seen molybdenum hurt seed germination and ultimately the stand of the crop.
On the other hand, nutrients like iron, manganese, and zinc have worked quite well in this type of delivery mechanism (talc/graphite) and putting a small amount of each one right where the root system will be growing increases your chances to nearly 100% that the roots will find the nutrients and make use of them.
NUTRIENTS IN TALC:
MEDIUM RISK, MEDIUM REWARD.
CARBON
It’s fairly common to see humics, fulvics, or other organic acids or carbon sources included with talc and graphite. The safety factor is generally pretty good, and while there is a huge variance in the quality of these types of products, they can be helpful in providing a food source for beneficial microbes and as a holding source and potential delivery mechanism for nutrients.
CARBON:
LOW RISK, MEDIUM REWARD.
NATURALS
Inoculants have been around for many years, providing living microbes (as well as microbes in a dormant stage in some cases) for the seed. Using talc/graphite as the carrier for microbes is fairly new, though. The challenge comes down to survivability for the microbes on this media source.
We’ve done quite a bit of work with talc and have seen some hits and misses with microbial success. A surprisingly low percentage of talc on the market is actually pure (and asbestos-free) and may contain things that harm the microbes.
Also, graphite can be extremely harmful to microbes if they are in contact with it for a longer period of time. We’ve seen products like Nutri-Shield have great success running with just a pure, straight talc formulation (no graphite) in the past for that reason. The previously mentioned Maxx NS takes a different approach, where you wait to mix the microbes with the talc/graphite until the seed is going into the planter to minimize contact time and maximize microbial success.
NATURALS ON TALC/GRAPHITE MIXES:
LOW RISK (ASSUMING SURVIVABILITY), HIGH REWARD.
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PIPELINE OF NEWER ADD ONS
There is currently work being done adding fungicides, insecticides, nematicides, and other product categories to talc and graphite. It will be interesting to watch the trials this summer to see if there are opportunities there for alternative applications of those products.
DRAWBACKS
One thing to be aware of, especially since many of these talc-based solutions contain living microbes, is the storage of the product. Talc attracts moisture and can get warm.
Keep talc/graphite plus combinations out of the sunlight, dry, and in cooler conditions to avoid microbial blooms and microbial mortality.
MAXX NS
We encourage you to try Maxx NS Corn. It is an 80/20 talc/graphite mix. It can take the place of any seed fluency agent. The base product includes 1.35 pounds of zinc, plus iron and manganese. There is also a carbon source included.
What really makes this product go is the inclusion of Nutri-Cycle and Heat Shield, the two best biological/Natural products we have found to date. Since biologicals are fairly quickly killed when in combination with graphite, we’ve got these Naturals held in capsules you release just prior to use.
When you get ready to apply this product to your seed in the planter box, simply depress the capsules into the pail, shake the pail, and you’re all set.
Nutri-Cycle and Heat Shield are also available in Nutri-Shield (which is where the “NS” in Maxx NS Corn comes from), so if you don’t need zinc, iron, manganese, carbon, or graphite, you can use Nutri-Shield as a planter box seed treatment instead.