Maximize Crop Performance with Biological Solutions: Enhance Yield at Every Stage
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Every crop has three key development stages – starting, growing and finishing – and while every stage is required to deliver crop yield and quality, they each have unique stresses that need to be managed to optimize crop potential.
For decades, farmers have relied on tools like herbicides, insecticides and fungicides to help crops manage biotic stressors at these key development stages. These tools have opened opportunities to achieve yield bumps, improve crop quality, and provide safe, high-quality food.
Now, farmers have another tool that can easily be incorporated into any crop management plan to give them the edge they need to take plant performance to the next level – biological crop protection products.
Biological products are a new way to harness materials naturally found in the environment, such as beneficial bacteria or enzymes derived from natural sources, and leverage them as additional crop production tools designed to enhance productivity, manage stress, and adapt to climate, regulatory, and consumer preference changes. Biologicals can help farmers manage the impacts of abiotic stressors – such as temperature extremes, hail damage, and nutrient deficiencies – which themselves are viewed as uncontrollable and as some of the biggest crop challenges farmers are facing today.
Effective solutions to maximize productivity at every stage
In many cases, maximizing crop performance means providing plants with the arsenal they need to help mitigate stressors that can otherwise prevent farmers from achieving yield quality and crop potential. Biologicals are complementary solutions that can be easily integrated into any crop management plan that utilizes existing tools including herbicides, insecticides and pesticides.
Biologicals are complementary solutions that can easily be integrated into any crop management plan.
Here’s a look at how Biologicals can help maximize crop performance throughout the three key development stages:
- Start
Emergence and stand establishment are every crop’s best chance at realizing yield potential. If a farmer already knows this critical stage is going to be a challenge due to abiotic stressors, like seeding into cold soils or high soil salinity, that can inhibit germination and root development, it makes sense to add a Biological seed treatment that can naturally protect seed and enhance early season development.
Incorporating a Biological seed treatment is an easy way to manage anticipated challenges and overcome abiotic or environmental stressors that are known to limit a crop’s potential.
- Grow
Nothing can test the best crop management plan like in-season issues. Hard to predict problems like hail, extreme temperatures, and unexpected nutrient deficiencies can affect a crop at any development stage, but during vegetative stages where the plant is focused on producing biomass, (or large leaves and strong stems), a plant’s ability to return to normal growth potential is essential. And that’s where Biologicals can help.
Consulting with your local Biological Innovation Manager can help you identify the abiotic stressors that are unique to your field, and help you find the appropriate biological solution. Integrating the biological product into your crop management plan is straightforward, as it can be conveniently tank-mixed with an existing crop application, such as an early herbicide pass.
- Finish
The final crop maturation, or finishing stage, is the ultimate push for yield. It’s this stage, where cereal heads, pea, canola, and soybean pods, as well as corn kernels are filling. Biologicals can conveniently help at this stage too. During the finishing stage of a crop, biological products can be added to crop management plans help plants sustain photosynthetic activity and maintain nutrient uptake – giving them the boost they need to deliver the final bump farmers need to close the yield gap and reach their highest potential yield.
Find the right fit
When thinking about this season’s crop management plan, it’s important to remember that biological crop protection products are complementary and can be used manage abiotic stressors that are prohibiting your crops from reaching their full genetic potential. When paired with conventional technologies, these products enhance crop performance and reduce losses due to climate unpredictability.
For farmers to determine the right ‘fit’ or biological product for their acres, it’s important to start by identifying reoccurring or in-season stressors and challenges that are preventing crops from achieving their best at every development stage (start, growth and finish). Adopting a ‘problem solving’ approach allows advisors to identify the most suitable biological solution based on the unique crop challenges the farm is experiencing, helping farmers achieve their desired results.
Looking for more information about how to integrate biological products into a crop management plan? Contact a Biological Innovation Manager today.
Corteva Agriscience biological products
