It’s a well-known fact in Agriculture that while we harvest one year’s crops, we are already hard at work planning the next season. The next growing season starts already before the combine is even parked for the winter. We look at mainly inputs like whether we put on fertilizer in the fall or in the spring. Maybe it is being prepared with a plan to attack weeds and diseases that we saw this year. Even more importantly, what about the pests that we faced this year?
When we think of the two most dangerous pests, it usually is corn rootworm or soybean cyst nematodes. The SCN is where we are going to keep our focus today but mind you, corn plays a role in that battle. However, the most important choice we are going to make in our battle against the nematode is in the seeds we select.
Dr. Greg Tylka is a nematologist at Iowa State University and works with the SCN Coalition. He takes his job of educating farmers about the latest information in the battle of SCN very seriously. Last week, we talked about a new tool that is available for farmers, which allows them to break down the damage nematodes are doing to their fields.
So, when you have used the SCN Profit Checker Tool and seen the damage firsthand; what’s next? Where do we go from here? Dr. Tylka says it comes down to a few simple things. The first is to rotate your crops to prevent SCN from taking hold. They cannot survive in corn. The next thing to do is to change up your resistance in your seed treatments. Tylka had doubled down on his message that nematodes have become more resistant to the PI88788 varieties, and you need to be rotating them with the Peking seed varieties. Tylka says that there are more Peking varieties coming onto the market, and farmers need to be checking them out.
You can learn more about the SCN Coalition and their message of fighting the battle now, by visiting thescncoalition.com. You can also check out the new SCN Profit Checker Tool right here.
