Syngenta Thrive

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Cropwise™ Commodity Pro, a new offering within the Cropwise digital portfolio, was created with growers in mind to address market volatility and mitigate risk.

While Syngenta crop protection products provide long-lasting residual protection and application flexibility, growers may be concerned over making the investment because of market uncertainty. Cropwise Commodity Pro can help protect the value of the premium product purchases against a drop in the commodity price during the growing season. There is no additional cost to participate in Cropwise Commodity Pro after the Syngenta products are purchased. The offering is only available through participating retailers and is applicable to corn and soybean crops grown in the Midwest and South.

Growers should feel confident in their Syngenta product purchases and how they can help crops realize their yield potential. “However, if the market should work unfavorably, meaning it takes a downward turn, then we will share in some of that risk in the form of a cash back payment with the grower,” says Eric Honeycutt, digital ag solutions marketing lead at Syngenta . “In most cases, that means up to 15% cash back if commodity prices drop.”

How Cropwise Commodity Pro Works

Syngenta conducted pilots over two years prior to the launch, according to Honeycutt. Here’s how the program works:

  1. Certain qualifications are required, such as acreage and products used. “Many products that qualify are going to be Better Yield is the Better Deal™ brands like Acuron® GT herbicide ,” Honeycutt says. Growers should check with their Syngenta representative or retailer to see if they meet offer qualifications.
  2. At the end of July, growers will be locked into the commodity price for corn or soybeans, based on their product purchases.
  3. The locked-in price will then protect qualified purchases against a drop in the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn or soybean commodity price later in the season.
  4. If the late-season average commodity price from August to October declines in price, participating growers will receive cash back for the percent difference in the two prices on their qualifying products, up to 15%.

It’s important to note that Syngenta is not marketing the crop on the grower’s behalf. This is an additional commodity price protection that comes with purchasing specific Syngenta premium products. Those enrolled will have access to an online portal to track their potential payout and what the market is doing.

“This is an exciting opportunity within our Digital Ag Solutions portfolio to help growers who are investing in Syngenta premium brands,” Honeycutt says. “They not only reap the rewards of the agronomic benefits in their fields, but when they take their crop to market, they can receive a potentially higher premium and higher price.”

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As more soybean growers begin planting earlier and earlier, you may be considering it for your own operation. However, the benefits of increased yield potential also bring an increased risk of disease. One to watch out for: Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS).

If SDS infects your soybeans, you may find yourself on the low side of the ROI spectrum. The University of Minnesota reports severe SDS infection can cause over 50% yield loss. And because SDS commonly infects soybeans planted in cool and wet conditions, early-planted soybeans are more susceptible to yield loss.

Regardless of your choice to plant early or later, we want to help you protect what matters most: your bottom line. While there are currently no in-season options available for treating SDS, here are some tips to protect your soybeans from it.

  • Plant in fields without a history of SDS to help limit the risk of disease infection from the cool, wet conditions.
  • Test your soil for Soybean Cyst Nematodes (SCN), a small parasite that feeds on roots and can open the door to SDS.
  • Plant SDS and SCN-resistant varieties.
  • Use a SDS seed treatment.

To help set a strong foundation for protection and growth, we recommend Saltro® fungicide seed treatment.

Saltro delivers upgraded SDS protection and robust SCN activity, without causing early-season stress, which could mean better protection for your early-planted soybeans. It also protects against Red Crown Rot**, in eligible states via a 2(ee) label recommendation for Red Cown Rot suppression. The 2(ee) label recommendation has been approved in AR, IL, IN, IA, KY, MO and TN.

Under moderate-to-high SDS pressure, Saltro delivers a four bu/A yield advantage over ILEVO®*. Talk to your retailer or Syngenta representative or visit WhySaltro.com to see local trial results and product reviews.

*U.S. trials with SDS pressure; 2015-2020. Trial locations: AR, IL, IA, KS, KY, MI, MN, MO, TN, WI. Trials with significantly different disease incidence/severity rating between Check and SDS treatment.

**Syngenta supports a FIFRA Section 2(ee) recommendation for Saltro for suppression of Red Crown Rot in AR, IL, IN, IA, KY, MO and TN. Please see the Section 2(ee) recommendation to confirm that the recommendation is applicable in your state. The Section 2(ee) recommendation for Saltro should be in the possession of the user at the time of application.

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Tyler Harp, Ph.D., technical product lead for row crop fungicides at Syngenta , was recently interviewed by Joel Penhorwood, farm broadcaster at Ohio Ag Net, to share his tips for corn and soybean fields in 2024.

Here is a summary of Harp’s recommendations:

  • The days of making situational decisions about fungicide applications are over, no matter how wet or dry the season becomes.
  • Instead, plan on applying a fungicide with long-lasting disease control and plant-health benefits, like Miravis® Neo, Miravis® Top and Trivapro® fungicides, each year. This practice will help protect your corn and soybeans regardless of factors like anticipated weather conditions or the severity of diseases, like tar spot.
  • Years of data from across the corn belt show that yearly fungicide applications are one of the best ways to protect your investment potential.
  • Evidence from dry years like 2020 and very wet years like 2021 show that fungicides support yield preservation in both wet and dry conditions.
  • In 2023, growers who used Syngenta fungicides saw excellent results at harvest.

Steady growth in the number of fungicide-treated corn acres over the last two decades is a testament to the consistency and value of plant-health fungicides.

For more information about the benefits and tips for the proper timing of fungicide applications, listen to the full interview here.

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Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed a wide variety of weather patterns at planting and throughout the season, which go hand-in-hand with yield-robbing diseases. 2023 marked a difficult year with many experiencing either heavy rainfall from El Nino or abnormally dry conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. This increased the risk for early-season diseases limiting plant stands and ultimately potential yield.

While we don’t know what conditions will be like this year, consider how you can best protect your seed investment, reduce replants and help your soybeans reach their full yield potential. Here are a few possible scenarios to consider:

  • Cool and wet soil conditions: You’ll likely battle soilborne pathogens like Pythium. This pathogen can cause seed rot, damping off and seedling blight and often result in reduced emergence, compromised stand establishment and poor plant vigor.
  • Warm and wet soil conditions: You’ll likely face Phytophthora, one of the most destructive early-season pathogens and a significant cause of limited establishment in soybeans. This pathogen reduces potential yield by killing seedlings and reducing the root efficiency of maturing plants.
  • Dry soil conditions: You may see more Rhizoctonia pressure. This could limit root mass, stand establishment and seedling vigor.

No matter when you plant or what conditions you face, the best way to protect your soybeans is with a powerful broad-spectrum seed treatment. That’s why we recommend CruiserMaxx® APX to protect your soybeans and help them emerge stronger and healthier with the most yield potential.

Watch how CruiserMaxx APX performs under Pythium pressure in an inoculated thermogradient trial in varying temperature environments:

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When you spend about $80 per bag of seed, you likely expect some won’t emerge or will have weak plant stands. So, right off the bat, you’re losing potential ROI. But what if you could expect more seeds to emerge and have consistently stronger stands than what you’ve historically seen?

When looking at the numbers more closely, it’s clear emergence rates and plant vigor tie directly to what you’ll see on your yield monitor at harvest. And, contrary to what you may think, your seed treatment choice makes a big difference.

“Seed treatments are the bridge between early-season benefits and late-season ROI,” says Dale Ireland, Ph.D., Syngenta Seedcare technical product lead. “As soon as seeds go in the soil, insects and diseases begin attacking while abiotic factors, such as weather, begin stressing the young seedlings. Seed treatments provide immediate protection for your seed investment, establish strong plant stands and limit your replant risk, which ultimately boosts your potential yield.”

Beyond disease and insect protection for your seed investment, seed treatments have an added two-fold benefit. They limit the added cost and time associated with replanting and can increase the ROI potential of a field by helping seedlings emerge stronger, faster and healthier. Though not all seed treatments perform the same.

To help set a strong foundation for growth, nutrient uptake and potential yield, we recommend CruiserMaxx® APX and Saltro® seed treatments.

“CruiserMaxx APX protects soybeans against yield-robbing insects and diseases, like Pythium and Phytophthora, while enabling faster, more uniform emergence, stronger plants and roots and quicker speed-to-canopy,” Ireland says. “By adding on Saltro with CruiserMaxx APX, you can get superior Sudden Death Syndrome protection and robust Soybean Cyst Nematode activity.”

Talk to your retailer or Syngenta representative about adding a seed treatment to your portfolio. You can also visit SyngentaUS.com/CruiserMaxxAPX or WhySaltro.com to see more local trial results and product reviews.

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As you prepare for the 2024 season, creating a disease management plan for your cereal crops is crucial to keeping your fields protected. While field management, fungicides and planting strategies are important factors to this plan, consider what you can do to protect your crops and maximize yield potential before the seed even goes in the ground.

Seed treatments for cereal crops allow your seedlings to have the strongest possible start from day one by providing greater protection against early-season stressors like Pythium to help ensure proper root development and optimal stand.

With more than 50 known species in the U.S. – and found in every agricultural soil in North America – Pythium is one of the most persistent, pervasive and resistant disease pathogens. It is so common in wheat that it is often misdiagnosed as winter injury, poor soil fertility or toxicity from crop residue. The adverse impact of this disease on yields is clear:

  • In winter wheat, when Pythium populations were experimentally reduced or nearly eliminated, yield typically increased by 15-20%1  and sometimes up to 50%2.
  • Pythium has been described as more limiting to stands and seedling vigor of wheat during more years and over a greater portion of North America than any other disease3.

Seed treatments like Vayantis® are particularly effective at preventing early-season diseases, like Pythium. Vayantis utilizes novel modes of action to provide robust protection against early-season disease and can be customized to further meet the needs of your fields. With proven results, seed treatments like Vayantis help seedlings thrive, while increasing overall crop quality, stand establishment and yield potential.

1Hans Kok, WSU/UI Extension Conservation Tillage Specialist, UI Ag Science 231, PO Box 442339, Moscow, ID 83844 USA Redesigned by Leila Styer, CAHE Computer Resource Unit; Maintained by Debbie Marsh, Dept. of Crop & Soil Sciences, WSU

2Degrees of Sensitivity to Metalaxyl Within the Pythium spp. Pathogenic to Wheat in the Pacific Northwest. R.J. COOK, Research Plant Pathologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Washington State University, Pullman 99164, and BING-XINGZHANG, Visiting Plant Pathologist to Washington State University from Zhejiang Agricultural University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Peoples Republic of China

3CA data, A. Dickson, and EU data, S. Torrian

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Although one of the top fresh market crops in the U.S., watermelons can be vulnerable to disease, especially in the Southeast. Cool and wet conditions in early spring open the door for fungal disease to infect seedlings whereas hot and humid Southeastern summers cause additional stress that makes it difficult for plants to outcompete pathogens.

Fusarium wilt in watermelons is caused by the host-specific seed- and soil-borne pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum (FON), which invades the roots of the plant. Seedlings infected by Fusarium wilt may experience damping off, resulting in decreased stands. As the disease advances in older plants, extensive damage to the vascular tissue results in permanent wilting of the entire plant. Fusarium wilt can drastically decrease marketability as fruit produced by infected plants is likely to split or become sunburned.

According to the University of Florida, Fusarium wilt can eliminate all marketable yield in an infected field. It is also one of the most difficult diseases for growers to manage because FON spores can survive in the soil for up to twenty years without a viable watermelon host. The pathogen spreads readily on infected seeds, in soil transported by water runoff, and on equipment and boots. These factors make it extremely challenging to control Fusarium wilt with cultural practices alone.

Fusarium Wilt Protection Starts with Soil

In the past, watermelon growers relied on soil fumigation to augment cultural practices and manage Fusarium wilt. Despite this, the University of Georgia finds that watermelon crop yield losses due to Fusarium wilt are increasing. This is because soil fumigation fails to eliminate all the spores in soil and long-term crop rotation is not often feasible. Until recently, growers have had limited success with fungicides.

Soil applications of Miravis® Prime fungicide, powered by ADEPIDYN® technology and fludioxonil, is a new option for growers looking to suppress Fusarium wilt in watermelon fields. When applied before or at planting, soil applications of Miravis Prime offer growers a new tool to protect their bottom lines and set their fields up for long-term success.

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What sets Syngenta crop protection products apart? Here’s a hint: it goes way beyond active ingredients.

Syngenta crop protection products are developed by a global team of industry-leading experts. Our products contain other components in addition to active ingredients—and each one has an important purpose. Our experts spend at least two years optimizing precisely balanced formulations to ensure our products deliver the right quality every time. Check out the full infographic to learn more about what helps branded products stand out.

An infographic providing data and examples that set Syngenta products apart from generics.

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The 2018 Farm Bill introduced an advocacy and policy research initiative designed to uplift a group of historically underserved farmers and ranchers. The Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Policy Center was authorized for two reasons:

  • First, to make sure there is a coordinated voice for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers as they advocate at the agricultural committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and the USDA, and
  • Second, to ensure that there’s data-driven information ready for ag policymakers as they work on farm bill legislation.

Eloris Speight, executive director of the Policy Center, has a long, accomplished career in policy and human resources strategy executive leadership. She has collaborated with congressional representatives and advocated for policies that will have enriching effects on socially disadvantaged growers around the country. She also brings first-hand farming experience to her position after working on her grandparents’ farm as a child.

“I grew up spending my summers on my grandparents’ 200-acre farm in North Carolina. That’s where I had my start in ag,” she says. “My first job was working on the farm. The first vehicle I learned to drive was a tractor. I’d buy my school clothes with the money I earned there.”

Impacting Policy With Engagement

Speight and her team established the Policy Center with four areas of focus:

  • Stakeholder engagement
  • Active research
  • Policy development
  • Strategic outreach

“Stakeholder engagement involves wide-reaching touchpoints across the land grant communities, particularly the 1890 land grants,” Speight says. These institutions were established to strengthen research, extension and teaching in the food and agricultural sciences at 19 historically black universities. While the Policy Center is located at one of these institutions, Mississippi’s Alcorn State University, Speight notes that she and her colleagues work across other communities as a national organization.

Much of their work centers around six research priorities: policy analysis, the impact on disadvantaged growers, USDA programs participation analysis, youth programs, urban agriculture and access to resources. “We have a focus on access to resources — especially addressing the decline in Black farmers, the only ethnic group at the time that was declining in numbers,” Speight says. “Youth programs are a priority, considering the average farmer is 59 years old, as we focus on cultivating the next generation.”

While the Policy Center does not provide direct technical assistance to farmers, it does facilitate knowledge through workshops and training opportunities. “We educate around the farm bill to teach socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers what’s in it that will benefit them,” Speight says. “Then, we conduct focus groups and surveys to drive strategy. That is followed by policy development when we take the data we collect and work it through the Congressional Black Caucus to get that policy implemented in the farm bill.”

Addressing Inequalities in Ag

Reflecting on what’s made the Policy Center successful and distinct from other efforts to address inequality in agriculture, Speight attributes much of it to the broadness of their impact. “We are one of the only organizations that I’m aware of where we have both public and private representation,” she says. “We have an advisory board consisting of 24 members that’s chaired by the president of Alcorn State University, with representatives from seven additional land-grant universities.” Some of the other groups represented include the Texas AgriForestry Small Farmers and Ranchers, the National Black Growers Council, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Mississippi Minority Farmers Alliance.”

Representation also comes from large and small farms, agribusinesses and national leaders like former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy and former USDA Director of Civil Rights Lloyd Wright. “We’ve also held focus groups with more than 5,000 active farmers and ranchers in the last couple of years,” Speight says. “If you look at all of our contributors, we’re a group that’s very far-reaching and broad.”

Gaining Partnerships for Progress

The Policy Center seeks support from large corporations to fund its research and initiatives. “Walmart recently funded a grant for the Policy Center to look at how Black farmers finance their operations,” Speight says. “When the American Rescue Plan came out, we found that only 8% of all Black farmers were recipients of direct USDA loans. If only 8% are getting federal funding, where are the other 92% getting funds? We were able to share this data with USDA and Congress.”

Other ways big companies can provide support is by providing technical assistance and sharing best practices so farmers are equipped with the latest tools and knowledge. “We also hope large companies will fund opportunities for students,” Speight says. “We want to contribute to the next generation of ag professionals, whether that is by offering internships or through the funding of internship programs.”

“Finally, we’d like these businesses as well as the whole ag community to participate in policy discussions,” Speight concludes. “As we collect information and come back with recommendations, there is a role that everyone can play in advocating for those policies.”

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Citrus thrips are tiny insects known for posing a significant threat to California citrus. They pack a powerful punch, causing significant damage to crops if left unchecked. Small, slender insects, citrus thrips typically measure about 0.6 to 0.88 millimeters in length. They are usually yellow to orange in color with fringed wings.

Illustration of a citrus thrips
Citrus thrips insect illustration.

How Do Citrus Thrips Cause Damage?

Citrus thrips primarily feed on citrus leaves and fruit, puncturing epidermal cells to extract plant fluids and nutrients. Larvae tend to feed actively on tender leaves and under the sepals of young fruit, while adults feed more actively around the tree foliage.

This feeding behavior can make citrus fruit unmarketable by causing:

  • Fruit scarring: Blemishes or scars on the outer rind of the fruit, rendering it unsuitable to be sold at market value.
  • Leaf deformation: Infested leaves that become distorted or discolored, affecting the overall health and photosynthetic capacity of your citrus trees.
  • Reduced fruit quality: Misshapen or smaller fruit that cause a reduction in market value.

Weather Challenges Contribute to Pest Problems

The University of California found that citrus thrips thrive during spring and summer. They can produce as many as eight generations in years with favorable weather conditions, as was evident during the prolonged wet and warm weather of the 2023 summer. These weather-related disruptions had a significant impact on the prevalence of citrus thrips during an already difficult year and underscore the importance of a strong early-season management plan.

Early detection of citrus thrips can help minimize destruction, but they can still cause immense damage to your yield if you are not careful. You never know what Mother Nature can bring, which is why proactive pest management is critical every season.

Proactive Citrus Thrip Management

To fight back against these tiny but mighty pests, you need an effective management solution that maintains the health and productivity of your citrus trees. In addition to regularly scouting your citrus trees for signs of thrips infestations, consider an effective insecticide with lasting residual control like Minecto® Pro to shield your trees from yield-robbing pests.

Bar chart showing citrus thrip damage in citrus crops treated with Minecto Pro vs competitors
In a trial testing citrus fruit sensitivity to scarring from citrus thrip pests, citrus fruit treated with spray programs that included Minecto Pro developed fewer fruit with scarring than citrus fruit treated with competitor programs.

A broad-spectrum, foliar insecticide, Minecto Pro controls not only thrips, but also Asian citrus psyllid, citrus leafminer and mites. Minecto Pro helps protect your yield from pests by harnessing the power of two complementary active ingredients into one convenient premix formulation.

For the best results when applying an insecticide for citrus thrips, target the spray on the outside canopy of the tree as citrus thrips gravitate toward the sun.

Learn how you can reduce the risk of unmarketable fruit and safeguard your citrus yield with Minecto Pro. For additional information, reach out to your Syngenta representative.

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