Clariant takes pride with its Agrocer® brand offering safe and reliable products for the seed colorant industry.
Clariant’s Agrocer® color solution product line leads the seed colorant industry in consistency and reliability. As Mark Self, Market Segment Manager Special Applications for Clariant’s Pigments Business, explains, “We control every step of the production process, including the ingredients used to make our color products, with rigorous quality checks. Whether a customer purchased a color product last week or last year, they can be assured that the product was formulated using the same raw ingredients, under the same quality standards and passed the same rigorous testing for safety and reliability.”
Clariant, a global leader in color production, in partnership with its exclusive North American distributor Standard Colors, places a high value on the reliability and safety of its products. Agrocer color products go through rigorous testing to ensure they will not impede seed performance while adhering to all EPA regulations for seed colorants (40 CFR 180.920).
“Our joint objective, in this partnership with Clariant, is to make sure that our seed colorants do not reduce germination, slow growth, stunt the plant or create any other undesirable effects as the plant grows,” says John Kibbee, vice president of technology for Standard Colors Agro Group. “Ensuring that nothing prevents, or delays growth is paramount in the development of a product.”
Data backs up the strong Agrocer safety profile. There are numerous studies across multiple plant species and multiple combinations of polymers, colorants, and active ingredients representing a wide range of typical seed treatments. All studies take up to 18 months to complete. During this time, all phases of production are assessed and tested – including normal and stressed germination testing.
Of principal concern to the seed treatment industry is potential dust exposure from treated seed to humans and beneficial insects during storage, transport, handling and planting. Clariant takes this very seriously, and as such, has independent experts conduct seed dust measurements using the most rigorous industry method to help ensure that seeds treated with Agrocer colorants will meet compliance standards.
“We pride ourselves on offering a complete package for color performance. Some companies might only test color, but we test different product combinations in different environmental situations to simulate ‘real life’. Our customers can be confident that our products will give the same high performance on the field as they do during testing,” says Self.
Clariant’s partnership with Standard Colors not only enables the companies to offer gold-standard products, but also expert advice to ensure every customer is provided with a blended coating for end-product application that works best for their specific seed treatment needs.
“The Clariant-Standard Colors partnership offers our customers the next-generation of products for successful coating and planting results,” Self says.
