Without much fanfare the calendar flipped to December. We were lucky enough to continue receiving days with temps in the 40s and a few 50s, which permitted outside tasks to get done. Here in central Iowa the top few inches of soil have frozen enough that a person really has to lean on the shovels or forks to dig. Last year temps stayed warm enough that quite a few growers were able to apply anhydrous clear thru the final days of the year.
Recent Events
The fall meeting of the Iowa Crop Consultants was last week. Most of the notable seed and crop protection firms made presentations and opened it up for questions. I will try to recap what was presented.
The meeting was opened by presentations from Syngenta. They gave information about some of their herbicide offerings to open things up. Then they launched into presenting info on the new biological research division which has been operating quietly for a number of years. This entity is known as Valagro and are launching their first commercial product. Thus far they have been using modern genetic sleuthing techniques for a number of land, sea and ocean plants to test them for components that can be used as stimulants and yield boosters for major and minor crops. The one they will be launching this season is called ‘YieldOn’. It works by stimulating corn or soybean plants to increase seed size and thus yields. The test plot data from their plots and the major 3rd party research group looked very good.
An agronomist from Pioneer Seed/Corteva gave an update of their new SB line, the Z series of soybeans, followed by some updates on corn hybrids. One new item that has been talked about will finally get released. It is the Qrome line of corn that will be tolerant to the Fop family of post emerge grass herbicides. With woolly cupgrass returning as a problem that moves in from field edges. Being able to use this family for later control of problem grasses has long been needed. They now have five Plenish bean varieties carrying the Peking SCN resistance. They also handed out a brochure which listed three pages of nutritional and stimulant products they acquired in the Stoller purchase.
BASF also presented on their wide portfolio of herbicides and fungicides. They have been building the soybean product line which was enlarged with they acquired Bayer’s soybean breeding program a few years ago. Until then they were well recognized as a SB company in South America. This company is launching a new CRW insecticide Nurizma which is only labeled for in-furrow applications. It acts thru GABA inhibition and is a cousin to Fipronil, which was sold as Regent, by Rhone Polounc.
Bayer also was present with two agronomists and a pathologist giving a breakdown of their new variety releases and their take on disease pressure seen this past season. A lively part of the discussion they led was on corn rootworm pressure and problems seen across the cornbelt. Their attempt in the last two seasons was to release MRNAi bred in traits, which they said would lessen the number of trait failure seen in drought years. What has been proposed as reasons for those failure is that when soils are very warm and dry less N is available to the plants, and with the Delta Endotoxins being a protein, lesser amount of those toxins are formed. Short corn and proposed release dates was also discussed.
I did bring up the research project conducted by ISU grad Kevin Steffey who became the Extension Entomologist for the U of Illinois and did a project using five CRW Bt hybrids from a major seed company. He found that toxin levels in one hybrid were too low to kill any larvae at all. Two controlled very well at V4 but not at all at V9. Then two killed very well at V4 but were marginal at V9. Those findings made us ask if the seed companies would test for toxin levels in each hybrid and include that in product descriptions. A noted entomologist said they should but never would.
One other joint research project conducted by Bruce Tabashnick at the U of AZ, (Aaron Gassman’s major professor) and a team of Chinese entomologists used corn ear worms in a 37- generation study to find out why mutations often occurred with insects. Traditionally in classic genetics genes are either dominant or recessive. In their study they had to conclude there was a third category of genes which they called non-recessive.
In last year’s meeting of the same type we were told about a new to the U.S. herbicide which was very effective against all members of the Amaranth or pigweed family. They were expecting to place it in plots in 2023 to gauge effectiveness against that problematic waterhemp. That planned plot testing and viewing did not take place, which was a real disappointment. They may be thinking that the difficulty in controlling waterhemp is the main reason farmers plant traited varieties. Now this DiFlufenican/Convintro is supposedly weak on controlling lambsquarter plants. Tank mixes will be the rule for when it makes it to U.S. farmers.
CRW
This insect is rated the highest dollar insect pest on Midwest field crops. For years farmers who planted second year corn used planting time insecticides. One by one the insects developed resistance to them, or we later found out that the microbe in their guts were able to degrade them. Traits were introduced and they were supposed to be fool-proof. But Jon Olsen, ISU entomologist related to me that root feeding was being seen with all traits in his very early trials.
The insect attractants are an area that needs to be explored. Such attractants would be paired with a labeled insecticide, either with a hard synthetic or a soft insecticide. Just lately I heard about Elson Fields of Cornell Univ finally is commercializing his CRW devouring nematodes. We had conversations with Dr Fields and had a plot site laid out for him and it sounded good. Then he sent a letter saying that it would be impossible for anyone in the state to be capable of conducting good plot work and the nematodes might escape. I wrote about this and someone on the SB board subsequently antied up the $ for Aaron to conduct a multi-year study.
In my last column I wrote about two companies selling Chitosan products which are being used very successfully in potato and sugar beet growing areas to control the nematodes. If the products work for those two crops, why has it not been tested and trialed here. I found out there was plot work done in Illinois this past season where population sampling was done and multiple applications made during the season to see at what time intervals would be needed to optimize the SCN control. Those trips might coincide when normal trips were being made to the fields.
Discussion Topic
One topic which was discussed at length in the early thru late 1980s was what the degradation pathways for each of the herbicide families. A number of today’s popular products originally could cause damage to the crop it was labeled for if temps were too cool or sunlight levels were too strong or two weak. Several companies went to work to develop so called safteners which increased the metabolic pathways which increased the variety’s tolerance towards the specific herbicide. Currently Bayer’s chemists have been the most prolific saftener developers which they provide to many companies. The two main ones used now are termed either GST or Glutathione S-Transferases (used for grass herbicides primarily) and the P-450 products (primarily for broadleaf plants). In the human body the same P-450 pathway is used to degrade harmful products which people might be exposed to.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.