Protect your soybean yield with seed treatments

Date:11-19-2024

Farmers often ask the Dairyland Seed Agronomy Team if treated soybeans are worth the investment. It’s a good question, especially when deciding on seed varieties for the 2025 growing season. With rising input costs and tight margins, treating soybeans should be considered a critical capital investment for the 2025 program. Ensuring your crop gets the protection it needs early on is key to maximizing yields and setting up your farm for a successful harvest.

There are many ″what ifs″ during spring planting, and seed treatments can be your insurance policy to get your soybeans off to a stronger start. Treat 75-80% of your soybeans to take one big ″what if″ off your list.

Early planting enthusiasts need seed treatments that offer every advantage in challenging early spring conditions. But early planting certainly isn’t the only time premium seed treatments make sense. Even on a typical planting schedule, spring throws plenty of challenges. The heavy soils in the Dairyland Seed footprint demand a high level of early-season fungicide protection, particularly against diseases like Phytophthora and Pythium, which can gang up on your beans early on.

Dairyland Seed offers four Corteva LumiGEN^® seed treatment packages, which include a range of options to meet your farm’s specific needs. For 2025, we’ve added a new product to our fungicidal package: Lumiante™. This addition enhances our ability to protect against those early-season diseases common in our region. Alongside Lumiante™, we’ve added Phalanx™, a new broad-spectrum insecticide that goes after overwintering and early-season pests.

This protects your soybeans from early-season diseases, pests, and nematodes—yield-robbing pests that can devastate a crop if left unchecked.

In 212 head-to-head comparisons with higher pressure, Lumisena^® provided a 4 bu/acre advantage over the industry standard high rate of metalaxyl. In broad-acre evaluations, Lumisena^® brought a 1 bu/acre advantage.*

How do you choose the right seed treatment for your farm? Start with a full-spectrum LumiGEN^® protectant fungicide package that aligns with your farm’s history. Consider the challenges you’ve faced in early-season planting—disease pressure or pest infestations. Evaluate your soil types and select a seed treatment that offers the best defense against these early yield threats.

Seed treatments don’t guarantee a perfect crop, but they give you a powerful one-two punch to start the growing season. And when you treat a significant portion of your soybeans, you’re doing everything possible to set yourself up for success. Taking early action with a solid seed treatment strategy protects your soybeans during those vulnerable early growth stages and improves your chances of a healthy, high-yielding crop.

WHEN YOU’RE LOOKING AT OUR LUMIGEN^® PREMIUM PACKAGES, HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE CHOOSING FROM:

LumiGEN® Premium FST	A fungicide-only package that covers all the major early-season diseases – Phytophthora, Pythium, Rhizoctonia, Fusarium, and Phomopsis.
LumiGEN® Premium FST/IST	Adds the insecticidal protection of Phalanx™ for seed corn maggots, bean leaf beetle, and aphids.
Lumiante™ Premium FST/IST/INOC	Includes both fungicide and insecticide plus an inoculant.
LumiGEN® Premium FST/IST/NST	Incorporates nematode control via the ILEVO® component.

* Data is based on 638 head-to-head comparisons between Lumisena^® fungicide seed treatment (0.568 fl oz/cwt) and Metalaxyl (0.75fl oz/cwt) in the top soybean-producing states through Dec. 12, 2017. Comparisons were made utilizing the same soybean variety.