Seed bath: treating seed the biodynamic way

What is a seed bath?

A seed bath is the oldest way of bringing the preparations directly to the plant: through the seed itself. Before sowing, the seed lies for a while in a stirred preparation or a tea and is then dried or sown straight away. Biodynamic literature also calls this seed treatment or seed dressing.

For seed treatment the Demeter standards exclude electron treatment; other technical processes require approval (chapter II.2.2).

Compost preparations in the seed bath (Stegemann, 1927)

The idea dates from the first years after the Agriculture Course. Carting out compost with a team of horses was a burden for many farms. In 1927 Ernst Stegemann therefore proposed a stopgap: he took “the seed itself as the carrier of the forces”. He stirred all the preparations except horn manure for an hour in six litres of water, laid the seed in it for an hour, dried it and sowed. According to Ernst Bluhme and Almar von Wistinghausen, this mixture consisted of the six compost preparations (Stappung, ch. 18).

In Stegemann’s pot trial, spring wheat, oats and beet grew better; with Bluhme, vegetables came up faster and more abundantly. Almar von Wistinghausen reported clear successes in 1928.

Horn manure in the seed bath

In the yearly application of the preparations that Elstrup Rasmussen proposed in Denmark in 1942, and which Stappung reproduces, horn manure appears as a seed bath for winter cereals, in spring as in autumn, with the note: not for flax.

Valerian in the seed bath

For the garden, the magazine “biodynamisch gärtnern” (January/February 2024) describes a seed bath with valerian: one drop of the preparation to one litre of water, stirred for 10 to 20 minutes, or a tea of valerian flowers cooled to lukewarm. The seeds lie in it for about an hour on the evening before sowing. Celery, leeks, sweet peppers and chillies are named, whose germination and young plants it is said to strengthen.

Horseradish tea and barrel compost

Pierre Masson names horseradish tea, which protects seeds in the seed bath from breaking down: 300 grams of leaves and roots to ten litres of water, used undiluted. In India and New Zealand barrel compost (cow pat pit) is used as a seed bath alongside soil and foliar spraying.

How to make a seed bath in the garden

1. Stir the preparation in lukewarm rainwater, valerian for 10 to 20 minutes, compost preparations or horn manure for an hour (dynamisation). 2. Put the seed in a cloth bag or sieve and soak it for about an hour, on the evening before sowing. 3. Take it out, drain and let it dry on kitchen paper, then sow. Mix fine seed with dry sand for sowing.

Choose the sowing day as usual by the day type of the plant.