Seed Coating
CR Minerals’ Navajo Brand® Pumice is employed in many seed coating applications. Coating plant seeds prior to planting is a common practice in modern agriculture. Seed coating is desired when growers need a precision-sown crop and the non-coated ("raw") seed is too small, too light, or too variable in size or shape to be sown accurately with existing equipment. The objective of seed coating is to deliver the seed in a form that is larger, rounder, smoother, heavier and more uniform than the original seed.
As crop protection, seed coating can also serve as a carrier of fungicides, bactericides, and insecticides that protect the seed and emerging seedling. Seed coating offers many benefits in comparison to traditional methods that require the use of expensive and complex chemical application equipment. Because of its high level of porosity, pumice serves as an excellent chemical carrier in seed coating.
Pumices is often used as an excipient, providing body, viscosity and coating integrity to complex seed coating formulations. The moisture retention properties of pumice make it an excellent inert powder in many seed coating applications, especially “split coat” applications. Because of its low crystalline silica content, Navajo Brand® Pumice is often the preferred seed coating choice over other inert powders such as calcined diatomaceous earth.
We are a leading worldwide producer of high quality pumice products, located in Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo), NM. From our high purity pumice deposit and modern processing facility, we produce SafSil® (amorphous silica) Navajo Brand® (pumice), PFM (Pumice Filtration Media)®, and Mine (pumice) products that are superior performance minerals serving a wide range of applications. Our SafSil® products are health-safe, offering very low levels of crystalline silica to minimize the risk of silicosis when used.
We have been in operation since 1948, and have extensive pumice reserves that will assure that we can continue to supply the highest quality pumice available in North America for decades to come. We offer more than 20 standard sizes of products, ranging from 1-1/4 inch aggregate to micron sized powders, in a variety of packaging options. We have the capability to produce special sizes to meet your needs.
As one of the leading pumice suppliers in the world, CR Minerals offers pumice products that are used in a wide variety of applications, including abrasives, fillers, mineral fillers, seed coating, cleaners, paints, coatings, metal finishing and metal coating, water treatment, and wastewater treatment. Increasing numbers of water filtration systems use our pumice. As a natural product, our pumice is used as an exfoliant in cosmetics and to polish teeth. Pumice is a preferred lightweight aggregate in concrete, and is finding increasing use in landscape design as a white landscape stone replacing traditional river rock.
Our sales team and extensive distributor network are experts in the use of pumice, and stand ready to work with you to make pumice your performance mineral of choice. Our commitment to you is "Customer First", a core value demonstrated by our long term relationships with many customers and distributors, relationships that have lasted continuously for decades. We are confident that you will enjoy working with CR Minerals.
We look forward to working with you.
CR Minerals Processing Plant
