“Do Fungicides Pay in Drought?” Question Answered in 2012

Jan 04, 2013

“Do Fungicides Pay in Drought?” Question Answered in 2012

Yield boosts throughout drought-stricken Midwest with Quilt Xcel® fungicide
Improved water use efficiency helped plants better manage drought stress
Syngenta videos outline fungicide’s stress management benefits

Greensboro, N.C., U.S.A. – Syngenta yield data indicates Quilt Xcel® fungicide helped corn and soybeans in drought-stressed regions across the U.S. better tolerate the 2012 drought.

Quilt Xcel has been shown to reduce stomatal conductance, or the passing of water through the plant stomates, the natural openings in plants that allow exchange of water and gases. This improves a plant’s water use efficiency. As plants regulate water loss more efficiently, soil moisture is conserved and plants are better equipped to tolerate periods of hot, dry weather.

“I had a lot of farmers and relatives asking if they should apply fungicides this year and wondering if they should spend the money,” said Dave Keffeler, corn grower in Remsen, Iowa. “We ended up investing in a fungicide application and saw a 17 bushel yield increase where we applied Quadris® fungicide followed by Quilt Xcel.”

A number of trials this year indicated yield boosts significantly higher than the averages Syngenta promotes for Quilt Xcel, which are 6-8 bu/A in corn when applied at the early V4-V8 timing, 14 bu/A in corn when applied around R1 and 4-8 bu/A in soybeans. The significant yield boosts often seen this year demonstrate a benefit from fungicide applications even in drought conditions. Trials in both Sioux County, Iowa and Trenton, Ky. this year showed corn treated with Quilt Xcel at the early timing out-yielding untreated corn by roughly 31.9 bu/A under severe drought conditions. In a soybean trial under drought conditions in Findlay, Ohio, Quilt Xcel-treated soybeans out-yielded untreated soybeans by 11.6 bu/A.

In a 2011 irrigation study conducted at Kansas State University, fully irrigated untreated corn produced the same yield (214 bu/A) as corn that only received 60 percent irrigation but was treated with Quilt Xcel at the early V4-V8 timing and again at R1.

Similarly, in a 2010 study at the University of Nebraska, corn treated with Quilt Xcel increased yields by 8 and 15 bu/A over untreated checks in plots that were fully irrigated and plots that were 60 percent irrigated, respectively. In addition, the 60 percent irrigated plot saved the grower the expense of 4.8 inches of water per acre as well as costs associated with pumping the water.

“We know Quilt Xcel improves a plant’s water use efficiency and have been taking a close look in recent years at the benefit that translates to for a grower,” said Eric Tedford, Syngenta technical product lead. “No one is saying you can grow corn in the desert because plants still need water to survive and thrive. However, results from numerous trials conducted in 2012 in drought-stricken areas confirmed what we have already learned from irrigation studies; that plants can benefit from Quilt Xcel under dry conditions.”

Aside from water use efficiency, Quilt Xcel offers other yield-boosting benefits. With Quilt Xcel, plants stay green longer, allowing for more plant growth; corn ears and soybean pods grow bigger and experience extended grain fill; and stronger stalks result in less lodging for a more efficient harvest and less potential for volunteer corn the following season.

Quilt Xcel is a component of the Syngenta water optimization portfolio, along with Agrisure Artesian™ drought-tolerant trait technology. New Syngenta videos outline the benefits of Quilt Xcel in both corn and soybeans.

Source: Syngenta

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”