AgroPages-Chinese Seed Treatment Registration Watch-Agricultural news

李贤宾

Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, MOA (ICAMA)

China registered 337 seed treatment products up to December 2012, accounting for 1.35% of total pesticide products.

The market is dominated by products focused on hot crops, such as corn, wheat, cotton, soybean, rice, peanuts, and lacking products for minor crops, including vegetable, gardening, and horticulture plants. Suspended seed coating is the main formulation for domestic market. Overall, seed treatment in China is still in a preliminary stage.

Table 1 reveals that the existing registrations are relatively centralized, with the number of registrations for main products accounting for over half of the total registration.

Thiram•Carbofuran, Carbendazim•Thiram•Carbofuran, Carbofuran•Carbendazim, and Phorate•Carbofuran have been registered in large numbers, but no new registration has been approved after the year 2009, due to the highly toxic ingredient Carbofuran they might contain.

Imidacloprid and Tebuconazole are the two hot products for registration, showing a good potential for the coming years.

Table 1: Top 10 Registered Seed Treatment

Rank	product	number	Earliest registration (year)	Latest registration (year)
1	thiram·carbofuran	43	2008	2009
2	tebuconazole	30	2005	2012
3	carbendazim·thiram·carbofuran	28	2008	2009
4	imidacloprid	23	2004	2012
5	carbendazim·thiram	21	2008	2012
6	carbosulfan	11	1999	2012
7	thiram·amicarthiazol	9	2007	2012
8	carbofuran·carbendazim	9	2008	2009
9	phorate·carbofuran	8	2008	2009
10	tebuconazole·thiram	7	2009	2012
Source： ICAMA

More seed treatment registrations have been applied and are in the process of field trials. It is estimated that the number of registration of seed treatment will double to some 700 in the coming two to three years.

As per statistics, the most popular products applied for registration are Imidacloprid, Thiamethoxam, Difenoconazole, Tebuconazole, Fipronil, among which, Thiamethoxam is a star product owing to its wide spectrum efficiency and low toxicity.

Figure 1: Application numbers of Top 5 products in year 2010, 2011, 2012