Primarily there are three main types of agricultural
industries that uses the dye. They are the crop protection industry,
fertilizer industry and the seed dressing industry. The purpose of the
dye used here is for colouring of agricultural chemicals or in the
identification process of agricultural chemicals. The basic selection
criteria depends upon the following:-
- Colour strength of the particular dye
- Dye colour
- Colour stability
- compatibility of the dye with the particular agent
Let's see each of the application in detail.
Fertilizers are often added with colouring to
differentiate between qualities and to avoid any type of errors in
application. Fertilizers are also coloured for purely marketing purposes.
Usually water based pigment is often used in the diluted form and is
sprayed onto the fertilizer or sometimes incorporated into a melt.
Use of colourants in crop protection agents of the
type insecticide and fungicides helps to clearly demarcate treated areas
from the untreated ones. In addition, the dye stuffs also help in
promoting safety in the handling operations.
Colouring of pesticides or herbicides is generally done by mixing
chromatic pigments with dry powder formulations of the agents. Milori
blue is a very popular pigment, that goes well with viticultural
fungicides, other categories of pigments include lithol rubine, heliogen
blue etc., Dyes used in the crop protection industry are Solvent dyes,
Acid dyes or Basic dyes the better alternative.
The main objective of colouring the seed dressings is
used for marking and a warning reference. To avoid any sort of confusion
and making sure that it does not end up being used as fodder. The most
important colourant used here is red with typical concentrations of 600
ppm.