Friday, September 2nd 2016
Farmers would know if there was a pest on their farms costing them thousands of dollars right? Not necessarily. Soybean Cyst Nematode (SCN) is a damaging pest that costs American soybean farmers $1.2 billion annually. There were 81.8 million acres planted to soybeans in 2015. That means on average, SCN cost soybean farmers $14.70 an acre. Unfortunately, a recent University of Missouri study shows that only 34 percent of farmers considered SCN a problem or were aware of its presence in their fields. Only 31 percent of farmers knew how they were trying to protect their fields. This is concerning because 92 percent of the soil samples tested were positive for SCN, with 77 percent of those being rated as a medium or high infestation. That is a major problem when it comes to managing this pest. Further complicating the SCN issue is a population shift occurring within the nematodes themselves. Historically farmers relied heavily on genetic resistance to the pest, but recently, traditional resistance is less effective. Rotating to non-host crops such as corn can help decrease future outbreaks, but this will only lower the populations and not eliminate SCN. Industry has recently introduced a few nematicidal seed treatments that decrease SCN’s reproductive rates, but so far none of the seed treatments are a stand-alone control of SCN. The main concern that farmers face is that there are no viable alternatives to the PI88788 resistance that is currently the main source of resistance in commercial varieties. The North Central Soybean Research Program, a farmer-led organization that invests checkoff dollars into research with regional implications, recently voted to fund more research in the area of SCN resistance. Twelve state soybean associations fund NCSRP including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.