Jason Bond, plant pathologist at Southern Illinois University, and Nick Tinsley, SeedGrowth™ technical representative at Bayer CropScience, discuss the basics of SCN and SDS management. They review where these pests thrive, symptoms of infestation and impact on yield, as well as conventional management practices and how new seed and seed treatments provide control.

Key Takeaways:

• About SCN
  • 80% of Illinois fields are infested; growers should assume they have it
    • Once a field is infested, it’s always infested
  • Resistant varieties are widely available, but most of the resistance is from a single source
  • You can have no visible symptoms and still have 30% yield loss
• About SDS
  • Since 2004 the disease has been localized
    • Quantitative resistance
    • Controlled by multiple genes
    • Difficult to test in the field
    • Resistance is stable
• Short- and long-term implications
  • Very few farmers sample their fields for SCN
    • SCN problems are going to get worse in the near future
    • A frequent sampling program will help growers keep it in check
  • Varieties with different sources of resistance are coming to the market thanks to recent genetic discoveries about the parasite
  • Select seed treatments can help mitigate SCN for the time being
• ILeVO®
  • Protects again both SDS and SCN, including:
    • Root rot
    • Nematodes
    • Foliar symptoms of SDS
  • Not a replacement for fungicide-based system
  • Affects multiple stages of the SCN infection cycle
    • Primarily affects hatching and motility