New seed treatments broaden protection against crop diseases, pests

By Ralph Pearce

Protecting a crop against weeds, diseases and pests is a challenge any year, but in a year of higher-than-average prices, the value of robust protection takes more importance.

As growers continue to look for every competitive advantage to maximize profits, two new seed treatments have entered the market, one for corn and the other for canola. Under its LumiGEN brand platform, Corteva Agriscience has introduced Lumiscend Pro, a fungicide seed treatment for corn, and is one of four effective modes of action for protection against rhizoctonia, pythium, fusarium and corn head smut. For added protection, canola growers in Western Canada can add Lumiscend seed treatment to their lineup alongside the company’s blackleg-resistant genetics.

A third seed treatment, Lumialza, is a biological product launched as a corn nematicide seed treatment, with more than 80 days of root protection against a variety of nematodes, including sting, lance, lesion, dagger, needle, stubby-root and root-knot species. The three additions join Lumiderm, an existing canola insecticidal seed treatment, in the suite of corn and canola seed treatments. The three new products will be available to growers in 2023.

For Jim Parks, the announcement translates into a wider array of offerings from one umbrella package. For the 2022 growing season, he tested Lumialza in three separate corn trials on his farm.

Jim Parks believes the heavier and thicker root system of a LumiGEN-treated corn plant means a more robust crop. Photo: Corteva

″It’s encouraging because we’re always trying to breed to get more yield and do a lot of different things to get more yield,″ says Parks, who farms near North Gower, Ont., south of Ottawa. ″But I don’t think we look enough at seed treatments and how beneficial they can be right from day one when the seed goes in the ground.″

He understands the ultimate metric for any seed treatment’s efficacy comes at harvest, and even when planting side-by-side, it can be tough to envision a particular response from a treatment during the growing season. Yet when he walked into the field early in summer, the visual comparison was evident.

″The first thing I noticed was the uniformity of the new seed treatment plants,″ says Parks, who is also a seed dealer for Corteva. ″Each plant was almost identical and a stronger, darker colour, so it actually looked slightly healthier than its counterpart beside it. It was the same lot number of seed, just with a different seed treatment.″

He examined the plants more closely — at that stage they were knee-high — noting the advancement of plants with the Lumialza treatment was further in terms of leaf stage, by about a quarter of a leaf. The stalks averaged an eighth of an inch larger than plants with another seed treatment.

″That tells me that plant hasn’t been held back — it’s moving forward — and as growers, we know that 50 per cent of our corn plant is the root system, the part you don’t get to see very much,″ says Parks. ″What’s taking place is it’s enhancing the root zones and helping roots to be bushier, heavier and thicker. There was more biomass to the root base underneath to provide such an even and healthier-looking plant, and that was at the knee-high stage, not 70 or 80 days later.″

The visual traits are impressive but Parks concedes the ultimate measure of success is when weighing corn at harvest.

The Prairies

For corn and canola growers in Western Canada, the introduction of Lumiscend, Lumiscend Pro and Lumialza provides an evolution of sorts as canola growers continue to manage for blackleg, part of the trio of diseases of concern affecting the crop alongside clubroot and sclerotinia. Estimates suggest roughly 55 per cent of canola acres in Western Canada are infected with blackleg, with an estimated average yield loss of nearly 10 per cent.

″We’re excited to introduce a new level of protection for canola growers,″ says Kirsten Ratzlaff, product manager for seed-applied technology with Corteva Agriscience. ″Similar to Lumiderm insecticide seed treatment, this fungicide package has shown excellent early-season seedling stand establishment, vigour and biomass.″

As corn production continues in Manitoba and Alberta, access to Lumiscend Pro fungicide seed treatment as well as Lumialza’s biological mode of action will offer two other management tools.

In 2022, Corteva engaged with growers and retailers to create roughly 200 sample sites to see the effects of Lumialza and collect data and provide valued feedback. As part of that effort, Corteva agronomists also conducted large-scale nematode sampling across the country. Although soybean cyst nematode (SCN) is the more familiar pest affecting yields, especially in Eastern Canada, there may be other species that can cause damage.

″That’s what the survey is intended to determine,″ says Ratzlaff. ″Introducing Lumialza to the market carries the understanding that nematodes aren’t always a household name nor are the types of nematodes or the extent to which they might be seeing damage in growers’ fields. That level of education is still necessary.″