In the interest of varietal purity and crop safety, the proportion of metal-sealed eared seeds should be increased

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Starting this year, winter wheat, which is grown by farmers on 1 million hectares of arable land in Hungary, has overtaken corn as the number one crop in the approximately 5 million hectares of arable land. “It is of great economic interest to produce an excellent, uniform quality crop in this area, and for this it is extremely important for farmers to use metal-sealed seeds, which are currently lower than the European average, around 35-40 percent in Hungary. An important goal of the Seed Association Interprofessional Organization and Product Council is to increase this ratio to around 50 percent in the case of winter cereal crops, as this way producers can ensure uniform quality and reduce production risks. The use of metal-sealed seeds is a fundamental condition for successful and productive grain production: one of the most important advantages is genetic purity, which ensures the production of a uniform, varietal-identical and highly marketable commodity base.” – emphasized Géza Takács, the president of the organization.

There are several advantages to using metal-sealed seeds

In the domestic seed sector, grain seed production takes place on 50 thousand hectares annually – mainly winter wheat, and to a lesser extent rye, barley and triticale. The seeds produced here are almost entirely sown domestically, on about 500 thousand hectares. The remaining area is resown with seeds. As Péter Perczel, Chairman of the Grain and Large-seeded Legume Section Committee of the Seed Association Interprofessional Organization and Product Council, explained: in contrast to resown seeds, metal-sealed seeds are an officially controlled, traceable and guaranteed quality product. The certification ensures that the seeds are free from physical contamination and pests, have adequate germination capacity and form a completely homogeneous batch. It is also important that the origin of such seeds can be traced: in case of a dispute, the distributor or the representative is available. “Another important aspect is that metal-sealed seeds offer greater crop security and yield. Since they are typically higher-generation seeds, their yield results are also more predictable. This is especially important due to climate change, as newer varieties are more resistant to drought, heat and unpredictable weather.” – added Péter Perczel.

They help farmers with objective experiments

The Seed Association, the National Association of Grain Growers and the National Chamber of Agriculture have been helping farmers with their orientation through a national winter wheat post-registration variety experiment for 18 years. The independent, objective, comparable quality and quantity values ​​generated in the experiment, as well as the data generated, are of great help to them in choosing varieties.