Most all of the farmers we work with are spraying fungicide in wheat along with their herbicide. Unfortunately, we find insects that are left untreated ravaging through many wheat fields, even though it only costs around $3 an acre to control them. Believe it or not, insecticide has come down in price for 5 years in a row! It’s less expensive this year than last year. Look, I’m not saying throw insecticide in every time you spray your wheat. What I’m saying is that since it’s so cheap to do, add insecticide to your herbicide and fungicide mix in wheat IF YOU SEE ANY BUGS. Just
look at your fields for a few minutes prior to getting in the sprayer. If you see aphids, cutworms, grasshoppers, armyworms, stink bugs, beetles, or even sawfly, add some insecticide to the tank. Depending on your timing, the product, and the rate you apply you may get close to 100% control, but even if you only get 75% control, it’ll probably still pay a good return on investment if you only spend 3 bucks. Again, I’m not telling you to do this automatically or without any scouting, but I
can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into wheat fields that had insects in there that could have been easily stopped for far less than the cost of 1 bushel of wheat.

While few wheat farmers are currently spraying insecticide when they need to, it’s the opposite in soybeans. Most every soybean farmer has figured out that if you want good yields, you have to control soybean aphids and other insects. I’ve got a funny story along those lines. I was at a University of Minnesota drainage seminar recently, and they showed some data how an undrained field of soybeans outyielded the connecting field that was well-tiled by something like 20 bushels. I was puzzled by this, since tiling on our farm has practically doubled soybean yields in some areas, so I asked why they felt this had happened. It turns out the poorly drained field was sprayed twice for aphids, while the well-drained field had only 1 mis-timed application for aphids that was done way too early in the growing season. Anyway, the point is, spraying at the right time for aphids really pays. It doesn’t always mean an extra 20+ bushels like it did here, but when you only spend $4 an acre for insecticide for aphids, you only need a half-bushel gain to breakeven. Controlling insects isn’t usually a problem anymore in soybeans, since pretty much everyone sprays every year. Where we see an issue is with diseases. We’ve been comparing half-rate versus full-rate fungicide treatments for 4 years now, and because our area is drier with lower disease pressure, we’re getting just as much yield gain with the half rate. That keeps our cost down and increases our ROI. Plus, we’re throwing the fungicide in with the soybean aphid spray, since the timing for both usually works out perfectly. Anyway, if you do this on your farm, expect to get about 1.5 to 2 bushel gains on average. Sure, sometimes you’ll gain 17, like we did on 1 variety a couple years ago, but if you get just 1.5 bushels consistently,you’ll double your money on a short-term investment, considering the best time to spray is in late July.
We’ll talk more over the next couple months about each of these insecticide/fungicide options, since they are of growing importance in our region. As a quick example today, if you wanted to run with a Bayer program use Stratego (fungicide) and Baythroid (insecticide). They are both labeled in wheat and soybeans, and they qualify for Bayer’s Growing Strong rebate program.

I know you are trying to keep expenses down this year because of what’s happened with commodity prices, but if you have insects or any disease pressure, cutting expenses may mean cutting your profits. Remember, if something pays you a good
ROI and you don’t do it, that means you earn LESS at the end of the year. On our farm, I don’t really care if I spend $100 or $100,000, as long as it shows a positive gain. That’s why field scouting, and learning more about insecticides and fungicides
is so important. If you use these products at the right time with the right rate when you need them, you’ll earn more money in 2009 for yourself and your family.