What is this pink thing in the pea seeds?
I order to bring me some pea seeds to sow in plot the next week (yeah! I will probably go to my plot). I ask to bring me normal seeds and not hybrids so I can keep seeds the next years.
The seeds were not in package. They sell pea seeds from one big sack so you can buy as much you want. Now I have half kilogram (500gr) from these pea seeds. The cost for 500gr was 2 euro.
The problem is that the seeds have this pink thing as you can see in photo and I have no idea what is this.
Do you know what is this?
I bought some broad bean (fava) seeds that turned out to have this pink stuff on them – I assumed it was something chemical and non-organic, probably to stop the seeds getting damp in storage, so I didn’t plant them. There was a name in small print on the packet, but I gave the packet to a neighbour and can’t remember what it said. Sorry not to be more helpful, but I’ll be interested if anyone else knows what it is.
From a quick search I found that it is an antifungal coating.
Yes I agree with Villalotus. The peas have been coated with a fungicide. I think it is common in seed used for large scale commercial growing.
Yes, but is it OK for use in organic gardening?
Well… I think we must learn the name of this fungicide. It’s the only way to find if it’s safe for organic gardening or not
Treated seed is so garishly colored, I was kinda shocked when I first saw some. So, um, CHEMICAL-looking…
I’ve seen red, blue and green, but never pink.
The coating is almost certainly a fungicide of some sort (they also coat seed with insecticides).
The colorant is added to make sure treated seed doesn’t enter the food chain. The seed package is supposed to be marked with the generic name of the treatment and a warning that it is not to be eaten by humans or any other animals.
I’m not sure whether the coloring is color-coded to specific treatments. I looked around on the web for pea treatments, here are some fungicides it may be: captan, fludioxonil, PCNB, thiram, mefenoxam, metalaxyl, or oxydixyl.
In certified organic gardening, you cannot use treated seed. In your own garden, it’s of course up to you. I doubt using it once would do anything terrible, but on principle alone, I wouldn’t use it.
Hope that helps!
@Mike welcome!
I ask some agriculturist here and they told me also that is fungicide but they didn’t told me the name.
For me it’s just… hmmmmmm…. ugly and disgusting.
I sowed some seeds because I had no time to search for other seeds but I don’t feel very well about this. After sowing my hand was pink also.
The pink chemical is capton and should not be handled with out gloves…..does that tell you something.
I was buying untreated veggies only to find out it was the seeds that were treated. GRRRRR