Vegetable seed treatment

Abstract

The treatment of agricultural seeds as a control of disease began as early as the seventeenth century. Apparently the first chemical used was sodium chloride. Arsenic and mercuric chloride were suggested in 1756 (5), but neither was adopted. At that time attention was being directed almost entirely to wheat and to control of bunt (Tilletia tritici (Bjerk.) Wint.). Lime water was used with some success in 1755 (67). Copper sulfate solution as a seed drench was reported in 1761 (63), and its use increased gradually for a century. Prevost (61) in 1807 demonstrated that copper prevents germination of spores of the bunt fungus. Addition of lime to copper sulfate to reduce toxicity of the latter to seed had come into practice by 1862 (12). By 1889 wheat seed treatment with copper sulfate had become quite common in England (58). While control of bunt was fairly satisfactory it became recognized that loose smut (Ustilago tritici (Pers.) Rostr.) is not affected by the copper-sulfate treatment (58). Suspecting that the latter fungus was more deep-seated in the seed than the bunt organism, Jensen (42), in Denmark, devised the hot water treatment, described in 1888, which is still used for loose smut of barley (Ustilago nuda (Jens.) K. & S.) and loose smut of wheat. The European work was confirmed and extended in United States (8, 44, 45, 46, 47). In 1895 Guether (33) in Germany was the first to report the treatment of grain seed with formaldehyde solution. Bolley (11) in 1897 reported favorable results with the latter chemical in United States, particularly on oats for the control of loose smut (Ustilago avenae (Pers.) Jen.) and covered smut (Ustilago levis (K. & S.) Magn.). By the turn of the twentieth century, methods had been worked out for the control of several seed-borne pathogens of cereals. Little attention had been given to methods of treatment for vegetable seeds.