Seed Treatments Can Reduce Pest Battles As Crops Grow

Feb 23, 2015

By Nathan Gregory

MSU Ag Communications

Corn, cotton and soybean producers have to strike a balance between risk prevention and wise spending to achieve good profits each year.

Insects that feed on recently planted crops can substantially reduce yields, but planting seeds pretreated with insecticides is one method of controlling these early-season pest problems.

Don Cook, an entomologist with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said corn and soybean insecticidal seed treatments have been used routinely in the state for the last decade.

Don Cook, a research entomologist with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and the Mississippi State University Extension Service’s Delta Research and Extension Center, inspects young corn for early-season insect damage. (File photo by MSU Ag Communications/Kat Lawrence)

“At-planting treatments in general have value to our growers,” said Cook, who is based at the MSU Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville. “They have a positive effect on early-season insect management in corn, especially seedling pests that attack above and below ground.”

More pests tend to feed under the ground on roots or right at the surface rather than above ground, Cook said. Insects such as seed corn maggots, Southern corn rootworms, wireworms and white grubs feed on roots below the soil surface. Cutworms feed on young plants above the soil surface, but they hide in soil and plant residue, making them difficult to spot.

From the time corn is planted until stalks are 1 foot tall, the crop is more susceptible to injury from early-season insects, possibly resulting in plant death. With less severe injury, plants can look normal for a time before injury symptoms begin to appear.

“Because many of the early-season insect pests feed below the ground, there is no rescue treatment,” Cook said. “You can’t come back and apply something to deal with them because by then, the yield potential of the injured plants has already been reduced. They have to be addressed at the time you begin planting.”

Cook said virtually all corn seed planted now is pretreated, but certain field conditions may warrant additional protection, which means more money on the front end for the producer. Determining the right amount of protection is usually based on a field’s pest problem history.

“You have to consider whether a field has had a history of pest problems every year,” Cook said. “It used to be a question of whether or not you used a seed treatment. Now, it’s about which one you want. Some people buy corn with low rates of treatment, but they’ll supplement it with a granular or a liquid. Some will go to a midrate treatment.”

Angus Catchot, an Extension row-crops entomologist, said MSU researchers have compiled data from 73 replicated trials using different insecticide treatments in Mississippi from 2005 to 2014. These studies indicate that pretreated seeds are effective at whatever level of treatment a producer chooses for a field.

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