By Darren Hefty
When I travel around our country to the various wheat growing regions, it’s interesting to me to note that farmers are using seed treatments for different disease problems as climate conditions change. I’ve also had the opportunity to visit wheat growing areas in other countries like in Ukraine and Israel. Some farmers are even more concerned about insects than diseases. One year a disease or bug will be a big problem, and the next year it may not. For those and other reasons, the insecticide/fungicide combination seed treatments have become the most popular products and generally the safest bets to give you a great return on your seed treatment investment.
With anything we do in our crop acres, Brian and I analyze each decision in terms of its return on investment, or ROI. Seed treatments are no exception. More so than with herbicides, the ROI on seed treatments varies from year to year. While some field situations – heavy residue, reduced tillage, heavy and wet soils, and more susceptible wheat varieties – have more risk of disease problems, you just can’t predict which disease, if any, will be the big yield robber from year to year. The same goes for bugs. They could be horrible or have a low pressure year. The key is that you can’t safely take a year off. You never know when you could lose a whole bunch of bushels to a disease or a bug, and there’s really no rescue if that pest is below the surface of the soil. For that reason, we always use a seed treatment on all our crops, especially now that commodity prices are high.
A couple newer products you may consider using as seed treatments on your spring wheat include:
- EverGol Energy, which contains the new EverGol fungicide (penflufen) that is very strong on rhizoctonia and has been shown to improve early root growth and crop establishment. The product also has Proline and metalaxyl for a solid disease package.
- NipsIt Suite Cereals has a systemic insecticide in NipsIt (clothianidin), a systemic fungicide in Metlock (metconazole), and metalaxyl. Valent also uses a proprietary system called Lock Tight to improve coverage on the seed and minimize plantability issues often seen with other formulations on the market.
A note on the insecticide portion of the seed treatments you use: standard rates only provide suppression on wireworms in heavy pressure situations. If you have tremendous insect pressure from wireworms in your area, you can and should add more Gaucho, NipsIt, or Cruiser insecticide to most seed treatments to improve control. There is no rescue treatment for wireworms because they remain below the soil surface.
In addition to using a fungicide/insecticide seed treatment, we always use QuickRoots. QuickRoots is a biological product containing a beneficial fungal strain and a beneficial bacteria. RyzUp SmartGrass is a plant growth regulator that’s been out for a few years in other crops, but now has a label in wheat. RyzUp has been shown to speed up emergence and early growth, especially when the temperatures are in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. If you haven’t tried either of these products, I’d encourage you to at least work them into your testing program and try one or both on a small part of your farm.
Also, consider that your odds of seeing a better ROI exist in heavier soil, more susceptible varieties, where more prior crop residue is present, if a field has a history of disease or insects, and when the crop price is higher. I would throw out one additional statement: many of the newer products on the market are probably better at stopping most diseases and insects than the older products.
If you are not using a seed treatment today, I encourage you to at least try some on your farm in a few fields and monitor the differences closely. Even a 1 bushel gain in wheat could provide a 100 percent ROI or more, depending on the treatment package you apply.