New corn seed treatment will fight nematodes

A new corn seed treatment from Syngenta will add nematodes to the list of challenges it protects against for farmers.

Avicta Complete Corn offers something unique, according to Palle Pedersen, seedcare technology manager for Syngenta.

“This is really the future of seed treatment on corn.  This is the only seed treatment on the market that will give corn growers triple protection against early season insects, diseases and nemotodes,” said Pedersen.

It’s unique because it adds an extra fungicide compared to packages that have been used before.  This is also the first time a seed treatment includes a nematocide to protect against early season pathogenic nematodes present in many corn fields.

Researchers have known about nematodes in corn fields for 50 or 60 years.  Most of them are native to prairie soils.  Work was done to learn more through the 1980′s primarily in Midwestern states.  Then, in the early 1990′s, soybean cyst nematodes came into soybean fields.  Funding from the soybean checkoff allowed for continued work in that area, but work nearly stopped on corn nematodes.

“One of the challenges there was at that point in time, we had no feasible economic solutions to help manage these corn nematodes and try to minimize that yield loss we knew we got from corn nematodes,” said Pedersen.

Today there is a solution, although Pedersen warns it is not an in-season solution.  The only options are through seed treatments and genetics, and currently there is no genetic resistance to the nematodes found in Illinois.

“The only way you can do it is with a chemical, and Avicta Complete Corn is the solution for that,” Pedersen said.

The product was registered in 2010 and has gone through extensive trials since then.  It has shown a yield advantage, while protecting genetic yield potential and helping to increase productivity per acre, according to Pedersen.