Across the corn belt depending on time of year | The long term solution is to use smart farming practices and not abuse the system.
The application of biocontrol nematodes should be viewed as a long term investment. Several farmers have mentioned that they consider biocontrol nematodes an investment like tile and need to be used smartly.
Once applied, the biocontrol nematodes will remain in the applied field for many years, probably the rest of your life, but their effectiveness against rootworm will depend on the decisions made by the farmer.
As discussed in the attached video, our longest running commercial customer growing silage corn in Roswell, NM has seen a return of $450,000 since the single application in 2019. Cost of nematodes was less than $10K. Silage is more valuable than grain and the plant is much more sensitive to yield losses from rootworm feeding. The ROI in grain corn is usually in year 2 with $4.20 corn. With $4.50 corn, the cost of nematodes is usually recovered in yield recovery in Year 1.
How do you use biocontrol nematodes smartly after you invest in them? 1) Always use your biocontrol nematodes in a field with RW traited corn, even one of the older traits which is showing damage without nematodes present. 2) Rotate to a non corn crop every 3-4 years to reduce the pressure in the field. |
Biological Control of Rootworm - A link to a recent presentation
