Compatibility of Commercial Polymers Used by the Seed Industry for Maize Biological Seed Coating

An efficient biological seed coating begins with the choice of a suitable polymer. Experiments were conducted at the Department of Seed Science and Technology, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Hyderabad, to determine the compatibility of commercial polymers and biocontrol agents. Five polymers commercially used by the seed industry were procured from seed companies. Three bioformulations were purchased from the commercial biofertilizer units and the pure cultures of Trichoderma viride, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Bacillus subtilis were isolated from the bioformulations through serial dilutions, culturing and subculturing on microbial media. The compatibility of commercially used polymers has been tested with biocontrol agents using poisoned food technique (for fungal bioagents) and the inhibition zone technique (for bacterial bioagents). Observations on the reduction in radial growth of the fungal bioagent and zone of inhibition of bacterial bioagents was recorded in mm. The results revealed that all the 5 polymers commercially used by the seed industry were tested to show 96–100% compatibility with Trichoderma viride, 100% compatibility with Pseudomonas fluorescens, and 95–100% compatibility with Bacillus subtilis. These findings indicate that there is a greater compatibility of all the commercial polymers used in the seed industry with the bioagents which can also be used for effective seed coating with bioagents economically without incurring any additional inventory from the part of the industry.