Crop Protection

With the outlook for high input costs and low commodity prices, the impulse for farmers is to cut their spend on products across the board for 2026. There is a more effective approach that will deliver better results and ROI, say Extension field agronomists.

Preemptive control of heavy-hitting diseases like white mold, frogeye leaf spot, Cercospora leaf blight and others is now possible thanks to specially designed soybeans that act like an early warning system, enabling proactive fungicide treatments and yield protection.

Syngenta’s latest innovation knocks out corn rootworm and addresses a host of other yield-robbing pests in a variety of crops.

In many areas of the Corn Belt, farmers experienced 10-to-50-bu.-per-acre yield losses from disease pressure this year, says Ken Ferrie. In a period of tight margins, timely treatment decisions were more crucial than usual.

The companion piece to the Senate’s Fertilizer Research Act of 2025 has the same, ultimate goal: to provide U.S. farmers with more clarity on the pricing of crop nutrients, lawmakers say.

The fungal disease has spread to fields in at least seven states since 2018, including three new ones just this year. Once established, the pathogen is nearly impossible to eradicate, Extension plant pathologists report.

Number of bushels per acre is high on their list of priorities, but it’s not necessarily their No. 1 concern going into 2026.

Both products have been registered for use by the EPA, with one of them featuring a novel active ingredient.

A new report spotlights how agricultural acquisitions and business strategy linked to the Chinese government have amassed production and power, and it’s being called into question by policy thinktank America First Policy Institute (AFPI).

Agronomists answer farmer questions about the role of nitrogen and other nutrients in lessening the potential impact of yield robbers such as southern rust and tar spot in corn.