By Darren Hefty
There are so many choices now when it comes to soybean seed treatments. It’s great to have all these tools, but sorting it all out can be difficult. Here’s how I group the products together and evaluate to find the right package.
Insecticide/Fungicide
There are some minor differences between products like Acceleron F/I, Dominance, CruiserMaxx and Intego Suite. However, they all contain fungicide components that are arguably similar. The insecticide components of each are from the neonicotinoid family. Performance differences between the complete packages haven’t been widely different. We have found Dominance to dry the quickest on the seed. Plus, Dominance has a respray program which gives you up to two free insecticide resprays if certain bugs show up later in the season at threshold levels. Overall, the return on investment from these types of treatments is often very good. For a cost of around $10-12/unit, the typical yield gain is 2 to 5 bushels per acre.
Inoculant
The first type of inoculant we’ll look at is rhizobia bacteria. Rhizobia colonizes on soybean roots, takes nitrogen from the air, converts it into a form the plant can use, and delivers it to the soybean plant. Scientists can now isolate the best strains of rhizobia bacteria that are efficient at producing nitrogen for the plant. Labs have also developed methods to keep the bacteria alive longer in the package, as well as on the seed. Inoculants of today are the best they’ve ever been, and the return on investment with inoculants is very strong. With a $2 cost and a $5 to $10 average return, we recommend them on every acre regardless of your crop rotation.
The other type of inoculant is what we term biological or natural, even though technically rhizobia is both biological and natural, too. In this category, QuickRoots, for example, contains bacteria and fungi that are beneficial to plant root development, nutrient uptake, and yield. While there are many choices to consider and varying performance between the products in this group, there are some that consistently perform and should be part of your program.
Soybean Cyst Nematode (SCN)
There are two products specifically designed to help you with SCN problems. Clariva from Syngenta is a bacteria that kills nematodes. Votivo from Bayer is also a bacteria, but it doesn’t directly kill nematodes; it keeps them away from roots. The yield data we’ve seen on Clariva has been a little bit better than Votivo, and Clariva actually kills nematodes, which in theory should deplete SCN numbers somewhat. Neither product is a replacement for SCN-resistant soybean seed, so keep those SCN beans in your rotation. One other important thing to note is you won’t use just Clariva or Votivo. Both nematode products typically come blended with a fungicide/insecticide package for application directly to your soybean seed.
Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS)
There are two seed treatments available with preventative activity on SDS. ILeVO from Bayer is getting the lion’s share of the attention. Yield data from trials last year was strongly positive with some as high as a 10 bushel per acre advantage in heavy SDS areas. SDS starts as a fusarium infection in the roots but manifests itself later in the upper foliage of the soybean plants as stress induces the toxins to move up through the plant. Tolerant varieties and proper agronomic techniques are important, but a seed treatment allows for another line of defense. Mertect 340 F from Syngenta has shown some promise as well and is significantly less expensive.
Clariva Complete, by reducing SCN feeding and root lesions, has been shown to lessen SDS incidence, too. It just goes to show that good agronomic practices that reduce stress on the plant have an impact on everything else throughout the season. This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in the value of a good soybean seed treatment program.