Gary Munkvold is associate professor and Seed Science Endowed chair in the Iowa State University Department of Plant Pathology. His message at the BASF seed treatment symposium was that there is a seed treatment revolution taking place today.
“Take a look at some of the things that have happened just in the last few years that have dramatically changed in the use of seed treatments,” Gary told the media. “Insecticide seed treatments are standard on corn and that’s happened in a very short period of time. Now we’re up to about four active ingredients being standard and we’re not very far away from six active ingredients being standard.”
Listen to Gary’s presentation here:
basf-munkvold.mp3
Gary says this is a very exciting time for seed treatments with lots more products coming on line. “Seed treatments are a great solution for growers. They’re convenient for them to use, they’re more and more effective, they have low environmental impact – the tools are just getting better and better for growers.” And as far as the future is concerned, Gary says the sky is the limit. “If we can show that there is some value to any characteristic that you can deliver in or on the seed, the farmers will pay for that.”
Listen to an interview with Gary here:
basf-gary.mp3
AgWired coverage of the 2008 Commodity Classic
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This Saturday night at the big Commodity Classic evening of entertainment at the Grand Ole Opry one of the performers will be 
I’m not sure if there’s a coup going on at AgriTalk or what.
Yes. It’s time once again for another edition of “Guess Who’s Boots.” These boots were seen around the show this afternoon.
I think Leah Guffey, WFMB, Springfield, IL is becoming an AgWired regular.
Steve Hawkins is managing director of The 
A record crowd converged on the 2008 Commodity Classic trade show this afternoon, welcomed by the bean guy. 
Dr. Dirk Voeste from BASF Crop Protection Headquarters in Germany enlightened the media at Commodity Classic on the process of getting science on the seed at BASF. 
Seed treatment was the topic for BASF’s media symposium at Commodity Classic and a little show and tell with seedlings showed what their new Stamina fungicide seed treatment can mean for growers. 
Cristina Pagani is the researcher who conducted the experiments for BASF and she explained a little bit about the results here. The active ingredient in Stamina is the same used in Headline fungicide and trials show it improves seedling emergence under conditions of high disease pressure, cold, wet soils and where corn follows corn.