Graphite & Talc Powders - Improve Seeding Yields on the Farm

Graphite and Talc Powders: Increase Crop Yield Through Better Seed Planting. It is common practice in the mid-west and some other isolated regions to add graphite and talc powders to improve the performance of seed planters. When planting seeds in high humidity environments there is a tendency for the seeds to bridge in the hoppers and not flow consistently causing poor distribution of the seeds.It was found that adding graphite to the seed in the hopper created improved flow and got rid of seed bridging in the hopper improving distribution and increasing crop yields. Also the graphite powder added lubrication to mechanical parts of the planter exposed to the seeds. Depending on the composition of the graphite powder, that is the graphite content, the higher content the better lubrication and less wear from the ash content.

Graphite is used in mechanical planters and the introduction of more advanced planters in the mid-nineties using vacuum and optical seed sensors required a different additive which was talc powder.Talc powders performed the same functions as graphite powders in preventing bridging, reducing wear on mechanical components and its chemical composition allowed its use in the newer planters introduced by John Deere, etc.The talc powders are sensitive to humidity levels and agglomerate easily which can be a problem when used in the early morning or during rainy conditions. This has been overcome by adding some graphite powder to the talc which improves the powder flow without having negative effect on the newer planters.

The packaging of the powders has evolved to meet application conditions since the early cans were difficult to apply in windy conditions and the black graphite powders sometimes would blow back on the operators. The introduction of pourer cans and 5lb jugs has got rid of that problem.Wilmar Graphite Company, who the author works for, now makes less than case quantities available for Talc Powder and 80-20 Talc Graphite Powder, Slide Coat Graphite and Clean Deck Graphite, in order to enable individual farms to buy direct. Information is available at http://www.Farm.WilmarGraphite.net

Bill Bagot,
An engineer who spent 40+ years in the graphite business. Now starting a second career marketing to small business and end users.

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