Seed Treatment; Protecting Your Investment From Day 1
Even though we are gearing up for spring, it’s not too late to carefully consider seed treatment options that will protect your investment from day one. The best harvest possible all begins with the plans made before planting to protect the seed. Ensure that your seed has every opportunity to produce to its full genetic yield potential. It’s obvious that we can’t control mother nature but there are a lot of decisions within our control to stack the deck in our favor. This all starts from the day the seed is planted. In times of reduced margins, it is critical to invest in products that bring the most return to your bottom line. This article shows that seed treatments may be an option to gain yield and help offset the added expense of dealing with weed resistance challenges.
ILeVO Seed Treatment-Just Another Expense or Profitable Insurance Policy?
- SDS is a frequent disease of soybeans but does not reduce yields every year – suggesting that ILeVO is best used as an insurance based management decision.
- Using ILeVO increased yields in all 7 Bayer on-farm trials in the 2016 growing season. The average yield increase across all 7 trials was 7.8 bu/ac resulting in net returns of $63 per acre.
- The economic optimum seeding rate averaged across these particular 7 locations was 127,000 seeds/ac, but seeding up to 140,000 only reduced partial profits by $2/ac – so over seeding is still cheap insurance against conditions that can significantly reduce stands.
Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) is a fungal root rot of soybeans that can routinely cause reduced soybean yields in the US Midwest. Soybeans are most susceptible to SDS within a few weeks after planting, presumably because it is easier for the SDS pathogen to penetrate young succulent root tissue vs. older root tissue that has had time to develop more ridged less penetrable cortical tissue. Given this early season susceptibility, crop scientists have been searching for a seed-applied fungicide that controls the SDS pathogen. Since about 2012, Bayer CropScience has been testing a seed-applied fungicide (a.i. fluopyram) that shows promise at reducing soybean SDS infection and yield losses associated with this disease.
This seed-applied fungicide has been sold commercially under the trade name ILeVO, as of the 2015 crop season. In addition to controlling SDS, ILeVO treated plants have also been shown to have fewer soybean cyst nematodes (SCN) per gram of root than non-ILeVO treated plants (Zaworski, 2014), and is currently labeled for control of SCN.
Given ILeVO controls SDS and SCN, this new seed treatment could dramatically increase soybean yields and provide significant financial benefits to Midwestern growers when these diseases are at high enough levels to reduce yields. Since it is not always known if these diseases will reduce yields at planting, ILeVO may be viewed as insurance based management in the event these diseases do reduce yields. Other than ILeVO, another insurance policy that farmers use is to plant more soybean seeds than necessary to produce maximum economic returns.
Over seeding provides insurance against significant stand loss that can often occur from poor planting conditions or wet cold soils that may materialize soon after planting. Recent research, however, shows that soybean economic optimum seeding rates (EOSR) may be as low as 100,500 seeds per acre when fungicide and insecticide seed treatments are used (Gasper et al., 2015), and is well below the current seeding rates that most Midwestern growers use on their production acres.
The Applied Questions
- Is the EOSR as low as 100,500 seeds per acre in on-farm trials, and is the EOSR different for seeds treated with base fungicides+insecticide vs. base fungicides+insecticide +ILeVO?
- How often does ILeVO increase yields, and is the yield increase large enough to pay for the added cost of the ILeVO seed treatment?
Results
Four on-farm studies were implemented in Eastern, IA and 3 in Northern, IL. At each of these sites, farmer cooperators seeded soybeans at 50,000 to 150,000 seeds per acre in 25,000 increments. Half of each of these seeding rate plots were treated with base fungicides + an insecticide seed treatment and the remaining half of each of these seeding rate plots were treated with base fungicides + an insecticide+ILeVo seed treatments. Plot widths ranged from 30 to 80 ft wide and plot lengths ranged from 230 to 2,260 ft long. All sites were productive prairie-derived mollisols except for the Peoria, IL site; this site had sandy loam soils and was irrigated.
For calculating the EOSR it was assumed that the seed cost was $82 per 140k unit for the base fungicides+insecticide treated seeds and $96 per 140k unit for the base fungicides +insecticide+ILeVO treated seeds. It was also assumed that farmers received $10 for each bushel of soybeans sold. All varieties used in these studies were Credenz brand soybeans marketed and sold by Bayer CropScience and had average to above-average SDS tolerance ratings.
At 6 of the 7 sites, SDS symptoms (chlorotic mottling and leaf chlorosis) were present during the seed-filing period (R6) and these symptoms were almost always more severe in the control plots that did not have seeds treated with ILeVO (Picture 1). Averaged across seeding rates yield increases for the ILeVO treated seeds ranged from 3.2 to 15.4 bushels per acre (Table 1). Moreover, sites that had more severe SDS symptoms during the seed-filling period tended to have larger yield increases from adding ILeVO to the base fungicides+insecticide seed treatment package. An exception to this was the Clear Lake, IA site; no SDS symptoms were visible during the seed-filling period but on average ILeVO increased yields 5 bushels per acre.
The EOSR for the base fungicides+insecticide seed treatments was 126,000 seeds per acre and the EOSR for the base fungicides+insecticide+ILeVO seed treatments was 128,000 seeds per acre averaged over the 7 sites. Moreover, the EOSR in these studies was about 25,000 seeds per acre higher than what the most recent published research suggests (Gasper et al., 2015).
Conclusion
Averaged across these 7 sites adding ILeVO to a base fungicide+Insectcide seed treatment package increased yields 7.8 bushels per acre. Plus, economic returns were $63.1 per acre, suggesting that ILeVO may be a worthwhile insurance policy for farmers to purchase. Even though there is not a guarantee that ILeVO will provide a return on investment in every season, yield increases such as these in 2016 suggest that ILeVO could be bought for the next 5 growing seasons and net returns would still be north of breakeven. That being said, the odds are high SDS will again return in one or several of the next 5 growing seasons. While this specific data set does show that the EOSR is around 127,000 seeds per acre, (still lower than the average farmer seeding rate) it still may be a wise insurance policy to seed closer to 140,000 seeds per acre. Given it is difficult to predict when significant stand loss will occur, and seeding 140,000 vs 127,000 seeds per acre only lowered partial profits by $2 per acre in these studies.
Not only do we have a full line of elite seed treatment products but we have a state-of-the-art treater on site to ensure you have the best possible product in the field. We also offer the latest genetics across a variety of brands to pair with these treatments to help make your 2017 season a success. Give our agronomists a call at 319.679.2281.
Content from Bill Daters, Bayer CropScience