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Agriculture vocabulary · Crop Production

Seed

Meaning in agriculture, with examples

nounCore term

In agriculture, seed means: The small part of a plant from which a new plant grows; in farming, also the grain or material kept or bought for sowing.

In Turkish: tohum, tohumluk

How it is used

Farmers buy certified seed, hybrid seed or treated seed and talk about seed quality, seed cost and seed companies. 'Seed' is often uncountable for the material you sow ('we bought 20 tonnes of seed'). 'Seed potatoes' are potatoes used for planting.

Example sentences

  1. Only certified seed is eligible for the seed subsidy.

  2. The seed was treated with a fungicide before sowing.

Common collocations

  • certified seed
  • hybrid seed
  • seed treatment
  • seed company
  • seed potatoes
  • sowTo put seeds in or on the soil so that they will grow into plants, by hand or with a machine.
  • varietyA named type of a crop plant with particular features, such as yield, quality, earliness or disease resistance, developed by breeders and sold as seed or plants.
  • germinationThe process in which a seed starts to grow and sends out a root and a shoot, once it has enough water, warmth and oxygen.
  • seeding rateThe amount of seed sown per unit of area, given as kilograms per hectare or as number of seeds per square meter or hectare.
  • seed drillA machine that places seeds in rows at a set depth and rate and covers them with soil, often applying fertilizer at the same time.

More terms: Crop Production

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