Life was pretty good for a number of years back when you could lock in a profit before you planted a soybean crop. That may or may not be the case for your farm this year.

Either way, with market prices down from previous years and cash rent prices up, you’re probably looking for places in your crop budget to make some cuts. Is seed treatment one of the places to save some money this year?

LET’S DIG IN AND ANALYZE WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THE SEED TREATMENT SPACE THIS SPRING!

FUNGICIDE PACKAGE

The base entry into seed treating is generally the “fungicide only” offer. Everyone (or close to everyone) is aware of seed and seedling diseases. We see them every year to varying degrees. Often, we can find a few plants in a field that died or nearly died thanks to pythium, phytophthora, rhizoctonia, fusarium, or some other disease. I have personally visited fields where there were dead soybeans to the row where beans were treated versus not.

This is true regardless of planting date. I’ve seen this more commonly in early-planted bean fields but also in double-crop or late-replanted fields, too.

Expect a price tag of somewhere between $5 and $10/unit depending on which fungicides, how many fungicides, and the rates used. If you have a disease problem even in just part of a field, this is an easy one to see a nice return on investment from fungicide on seed.

The problem is, sometimes you gain zero bushels from a fungicide-only treatment, and sometimes you gain five to ten bushels, which more than pays for the treatment over that entire five-year period, but it’s still frustrating how you can gain nothing in some of the other years.

INSECTICIDE PACKAGE

For a cost of just $2 to $5 per unit of seed, insecticide protection doesn’t seem like a great place to make a cut. You won’t be saving much money, especially for the added risk you take on. For example, look at bean leaf beetles. They overwinter as adult beetles and emerge early in the life of a soybean plant. When all you have is cotyledon leaves or maybe unifoliates, it doesn’t take many bean leaf beetles to rob $2 to $5 worth of yield.

Here’s the other thing to consider.

Reduced insecticide use in corn, less tillage, cover crops, and heavier crop residue levels even in conventionally-tilled fields all lead to higher populations of soil insects like wireworms, seed corn beetles, seed corn maggots, white grubs, and more.

If you’re not running with an in-furrow insecticide in soybeans (which hardly anyone is doing), seed treatment insecticide is your only line of defense. Last year, we did research work on this specific seed treatment product class. We saw 2.4 bushels more yield in soybeans on average just from adding a seed treatment insecticide.

INNOCULANT AND OTHER NATURALS

This is the fastest-growing segment of the seed treatment industry.

There are lots of products to choose from with higher microbial counts than ever before. We encourage you to use these products because they’re cheap and often provide very good returns. We’re often seeing a yield gain of one to two bushels with inoculant alone, and the other naturals have the potential to win in a variety of situations. That’s one of the best things about many of the Naturals products, like Heat Shield and Nutri-Cycle for example. They have so many unique strains of microbes doing different jobs that the product will pay for itself many times over if even one or two of those strains stop a pest, add additional roots, or bring in more nutrients for the plant.

COMPLETE SEED TREATMENT VERSUS “NAKED BEANS”

If you’re comparing a seed treatment containing Naturals products, insecticide, inoculant, and multiple fungicides versus seed with no treatment at all, think of all the ways the seed treatment could possibly win. If you have, say, 35 different things on the seed, all you need is for one or two of those to add or save a few bushels of soybeans in your field for the seed treatment to pay for itself and then some. If more than one of those seed treatment ingredients give you a yield boost, it’s a complete no-brainer.

The other thing to account for is early planting.

With the lack of snow, warmer-than-normal temperatures through the latter half of winter, and the positive yield data for early planting, chances are you’re considering planting some beans earlier than normal on your farm. It’s hard to argue against because this looks like a good way to shoot for higher profits. Don’t forget the seed treatment this year, especially on early-planted beans where they will lay in the ground longer and be exposed to insects and diseases for more time than normal.

REPLANT/RESPRAY PROTECTION

One final thing to look at if you do decide to use a complete seed treatment on your soybeans is the insurance program offered. Some complete treatments offer you no insurance. You paid for the treatment. That’s it. However, others like Hefty Complete offer up to two free resprays on insects as well as free replant protection including free seed and seed treatment should something go wrong in your fields and you planted on or after the first standard crop insurance date for your area. Since it likely doesn’t cost any extra to get this kind of protection, ask your supplier before you buy.

OUR RECOMMENDATION

Back when all you could get was some old fungicide and a questionable inoculant, we weren’t sold on soybean seed treatments. Today, thanks to much better technology in all the areas we just talked about (fungicide, insecticide, inoculant, and other Naturals), if you use a total package like Hefty Complete, you should be able to make good money on average with your seed treatment, plus you’ll have the added peace of mind knowing you’re covered in the event of replants or insect outbreaks. Please talk to any Hefty Agronomist about the details of our programs.