No grower likes to leave bushels in the field at the end of a season. That’s why it’s so surprising that fully 50% of the market is still not taking advantage of available yield-protection tools.
“Crops are guaranteed to face environmental stressors in every growing season, and a fungicide can really help mitigate the impact of those stressors during the critical reproductive stages,” says Brady Spangenberg, Marketing Director for Crop Protection at BASF. “But the fact is, half of all corn and soybean acres don’t get a foliar fungicide, yet both science and history show that puts those crops and that yield at risk.”
With this in mind, BASF asked how they could motivate farmers to test foliar fungicides in their operation - without having to shoulder the burden of trialing a new protocol alone.
Enter the Real Results Yield Challenge. The nationwide initiative concluded December 1 as BASF’s largest yield challenge ever, with approximately 280 retail locations and 1,800 growers participating over the course of the 2025 season.
Designed to provide access and support to stage yield trials exploring BASF fungicide performance across key geographies, the challenge asked participants to put Veltyma®, Revytek® and Revylok™ fungicides head-to-head with untreated crops or crops treated with competitive products and compare the difference firsthand.
To sweeten the deal? By sharing photos and harvest results, participants were entered for a chance to win one of three two-year leases on a 2025 Ford® Super Duty® F-250® Lariat®.
“The Real Results Yield Challenge is a phenomenal opportunity for all key stakeholders – retailers, BASF representatives, and growers,” says Amy Pawlick, Product Manager for BASF’s U.S. corn fungicide portfolio. “Through this collaboration, all parties are witness to the incredible performance of our fungicide portfolio and ultimately, growers get to experience the power of these brands in their own fields.”
With rampant tar spot and southern rust across the Corn Belt, the 2025 season put fungicides to the test, and the challenge revealed costly disease losses in untreated acres. “It varied by geography, but we did see about 20 to 60 bushel per acre losses due to disease,” says Pawlick. “It was a perfect example of how much yield can be left on the table if you’re not proactively applying a fungicide—and not just any fungicide, but the right one,” Pawlick says.
BASF understands that growers are always pushing the envelope in terms of yield, trying different technologies and products on their farms, continually weighing the cost/benefit of every input.
Fungicide use is often one of the last decisions a grower makes when purchasing crop protection products, and it can too often get the axe in the attempt to cut costs. Unfortunately, that’s a decision that can leave a significant number of bushels on the table.
The ink is still wet on the spreadsheets, but results of the challenge already showed a 23 bu/acre advantage on average with Veltyma over untreated acres across multiple geographies.
This comes as no surprise. Since 2019, trials have shown that BASF products typically outyield untreated acres over 90% of the time and and outyield acres treated with other fungicide brands over 80% of the time.
The Real Results Yield Challenge will resume next year, and BASF hopes participants continue to be motivated to trial products in their own geographies to find a customized solution to protect their acres and livelihood.
“We’re just excited to see growers seeing the difference for themselves and making their decisions based on the performance advantages they see in their fields,” Pawlick says.
Stay tuned to the Real Results Yield Challenge homepage to sign up for information on the 2026 challenge and read the recap of this year’s challenge. Reach out to your BASF preferred retailer or BASF representative for more.
