AgriCOTE®
Designed to enhance seedling establishment by delivering nutrients to improve early vigour and root development; along with protection against insects and fungal diseases.
What is AgriCOTE?
AgriCOTE® is a tailored seed coating treatment that conveniently combines vital technologies into the one high performing coat. Starting with quality seed, Barenbrug add advanced binding and protective polymers with lime to pelletise the seed, building shape and creating a medium for the inclusion of other important components. The polymer formulation enables the seed to be coated evenly, which makes it easier to work with on farm and promotes a more even seed distribution in the paddock.
AgriCote treatments include nutrients designed to be immediately available to the seedling, protection against fungal diseases through a fungicide treatment and insecticidal treatments to provide protection from biting and sucking insects.
AgriCote is designed to enhance seedling establishment by delivering improved early seedling vigour and root development.
In addition, AgriCote legumes contain rhizobia which ensures effective nodulation in the paddock, maximising your investment, while reducing the need to inoculate at sowing. Not only easy to use on farm, AgriCote offers farmers and graziers improved germination, enhancing the overall health and well-being of your seedlings.
| AgriCOTE | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Fungicide reduces impacts of 'damping off' diseases | Improved establishment, reliability and ‘peace of mind’ when sowing |
| Systemic insecticide for protection from some insect pests | |
| Provides immediate nutrition for young seedlings | |
| Pre-inoculation of rhizobia for effective nodulation and N fixation in legumes | Saves time and reduces the need to inoculate legumes at sowing |
| Easy to calibrate | Easier to use and handle |
| Even application and distribution with sowing equipment | |
| Wider array of sowing options suitable (ballistics) | |
| Ant and bird protection | Reduces seed theft |
The AgriCOTE Advantage
1. AgriCote rhizobia for effective legume nodulation
For legumes, forming a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia (rhizobacteria) is important as the rhizobia helps fix atmopheric nitrogen (N), benefiting plant growth. In agriculture we exploit this ‘free’ nitrogen source by including legumes in our pastures, as N fixed by these legumes provides a valuable N source, driving forage production. Nitogren fixation by clovers and lucerne can develop in excess of 100–150 kg N/ha/yr if effectively nodulated.
AgriCote provides a pre-inoculated polymer coated seed that delivers the correct rhizobia strain with a high inoculation count, helping protect the rhizobia for an extended period post coating. This saves time in pre-inoculation at sowing with a peat slurry. While rhizobia survival on the AgriCote seed is still impacted over time, under good storage conditions the rhizobia can survive for months on the coated seed. Traditional peat slurry and freeze dried inoculants applied to bare seed have a limited timeframe between treatment and sowing.
2. AgriCote fungicide and insecticide package
AgriCote contains systemic fungicide and insecticides that improve establishment of young seedlings by maintaining the active ingredients at useful levels within the growing plant for a period after sowing (circa 4 weeks). These insecticide levels then reduce the impact of sucking and biting insects (insecticide) and root diseases that cause ‘damping off’ in emerging seedlings. This strategy aims to minimise damage to plants during the sensitive establishment phase, improving plant count and establishment yield, especially under typical insect pressure levels.
The active ingredients also act as an integrated pest management (IPM) tool, by targeting only the pest insects (i.e. red legged earthmite, lucerne flea, blue oat mite, adult african black beetle) and not predatory and beneficial species. Furthermore, while the systemic insecticide does not provide complete protection, especially under high insect pressure, it does help provide an insurance against insects and allows you more time for monitoring and control of outbreaks before a failure occurs.
3. AgriCote improved seedling survival
AgriCote seed comes with a trace mineral and nutrient package, systemic fungicide and insecticide and lime which provides an environment conducive for plant establishment. These ingredients result in reduced seedling mortality when compared with bare seed, and stronger more robust plants that can compete in adverse conditions.
In addition to the benefits of systemic insecticide described above, the insecticides also assist with abiotic stress tolerance in the plant helping it perform in moisture/heat stressed environments. The trace mineral and nutrient package provides young seedlings with available nutrients that aid establishment vigour. The lime that is also used to help encapsulate the rhizobia, can be beneficial in providing a more pH neutral environment around the emerging seed and can assist in imbibing water at emergence.
Photo taken 3 hrs post coating in water suspension.
4. AgriCote makes sowing easy
AgriCote is easy to manage, mixes well with other seeds or fertiliser and is easy to calibrate. This makes sowing an easy process, unlike pre-inoculating legume seed prior to sowing which can be time consuming and requires sowing within a short period of time following application. In addition to this AgriCote seed provides ballistic properties, which aid activities such as aerial applications or flowability and accuracy of seed drills, especially when seed is mixed with other species of different sizes and shapes.
The Evolution of AgriCOTE
| 1950 Inoculation Boom | Discovery that native soils lacked the correct rhizobia bacteria necessary for successful legume nodulation. Creation of early lime coating for clovers |
| 1960 Dormancy Breaking Technology | Researchers like Dr. B. Grof at the South Johnstone Tropical Agriculture Research Station (Nth QLD) experimented in treatments to break dormancies in tropical grasses |
| 1970 Unlocking NZ Hill Country | Researchers like Vartha and Clifford demonstrated that specailised coatings improved grass survival when oversown into difficult high country and tussock grasslands |
| 1980 Protection Film Coating | Industry saw the benefit of using insecticides and fungicides to aid in reducing establishment loss from pest and diseases |
| 1980 The Tropical Seed Revolution | Tropical species identified as extremely productive important pastures. Tropical seed was too light, fluffy and inconsistent to reliably provide commercial planting seed for farmers |
| 1986 AgriCote’s Inception | The commercial agricultural seed company Heritage Seeds (now known as Barenbrug) begins operating its own pilot seed coating facility in 1986 in Toowoomba, Australia. At that time, the business was still operating as Hodder & Tolley before later transitioning to the Heritage Seeds brand. |
| 1990 The addition of Nutrients | As the space developed, key macro and micro nutrients were added to the formulation to enhance in field performance |
| 2000 AgriCote on the global stage | AgriCote quickly became the preferred coating of tropical species across the globe. Technology of AgriCote coating expertise exported to other Barenbrug businesses across the world. |
| 2010 Improved Seed Quality | Starting with the highest quality seed lines results in the best quality AgriCote. As Technology improved, we improved quality attributes such as improving purity, reducing doubling and coated inert matter as well as improving consistency in seed sizing |
| 2019 AgriCotes New Home | With the opening of Barenbrug’s new Toowoomba facility, AgriCote saw a major improvement in consistency and throughput, allowing more capacity and improvement of an already premium product |
| Now & To The Future | Barenbrug has a dedicated team constantly researching new and improved methods and ingredients to continue the success story of AgriCote. With every AgriCote seed designed to improve convenience, efficiency and reliability, performing when it counts. |
AgriCOTE and Tropical Species
Barenbrug was the first to use coating technology in the tropical seed space, today’s AgriCote Seed is the product of a long and rigorous journey of research, testing and evolving to satisfy the demands of the world of tropical seeds.
With an exclusive range of ingredients AgriCote offers unrivalled performance in the tropical seed space. Delivering you more reliable establishment across a range of harsh field conditions experienced throughout some of the worlds toughest environments.
We consistently see that AgriCOTE treated seed establishes far better than bare seed, which is
critical for setting-up a productive long term pasture
Scott Bennett, Agronomist - Mackay, QLD
See the full testimonial here.
Bare tropical seed will distribute approximately 70% of the seed in the middle third of the spreading swath. This results in extremely uneven application. AgriCote offers ballistic properties that significantly improve consistency in application across the swath, resulting in a more uniform application of seed, and ultimately a more consistent plant stand.
- The Finest Seed Available
We ensure we have only seed lines of the highest purity and specifications being selected to be enhanced by AgriCote. So not only are you buying a premium coating technology, you are also buying better seed to begin with. - Our Standards, Not Others
We only offer seed that exceeds our internal minimum standards, which are often well above the industry standards or common quality standards found on the open market. - Rigorous Testing
Seed is a living thing, we take pride in testing post encapsulation with AgriCote technology to ensure the seed going out on farm will do the job we expect of it! Seed is retained for quick lab analysis for if establishment issues arise Leading Quality Assurance
We trace seed all the way back to the paddock it was produced in, this traceability allows us to ensure that the seed is what it says it is and is monitored for quality and biosecurity throughout the supply chain. It also allows us to constantly improve processes to offer continuing higher quality product.