Manganous oxide as a seed-pellet additive for controlling manganese deficiency in sugar-beet seedlings

Summary Experiments in the laboratory, glasshouse and field during 1975–78 tested manganous oxide as a seed-pellet additive for controlling deficiency in sugar-beet seedlings. There was no experimental evidence that manganous oxide in the seed pellet was ever harmful to seedling establishment. On the contrary, germination tests in the laboratory and experiments in the glasshouse indicated that, in certain conditions, manganous oxide may improve plant establishment even when plants are not likely to be deficient, probably by accelerating germination of seed and emergence of seedlings. In field experiments where sugar beet were severely deficient, the plants were heavier and contained more manganese on plots sown with seed pelleted with material containing 50% manganous oxide than on plots sown with ordinary pelleted seed. Applying a foliar spray of manganese sulphate during the third week of June in addition to pelleting the seed with material containing manganous oxide gave bigger yields than either the seed-pellet treatment or foliar spraying alone.