History, knowledge and maybe a little bit of luck.

Planning how to treat insect and disease pressures is an ongoing and difficult task for retailers and their grower-customers. The myriad variables that influence pest infestations are hard, if not impossible, to predict. The 2025 season will be no different.

Manufacturers of products designed to combat the multiple challenges growers face continue to deliver new and effective solutions.

“The biggest challenge growers face each season is staying ahead of pests and diseases,” says Kurt Maertens, Technical Service Representative at BASF. “Early detection is key, and that’s why we always encourage our partners and customers to actively scout their fields. By doing so, we can identify pests in a timely manner and take action with the right insecticide or fungicide to prevent yield loss.”

Recently, growers faced changing climates that impact when, where, and how severe their pest pressures.

“Over the past few seasons, we’ve observed several trends: First, warmer winters allowing certain pests to overwinter more successfully, leading to earlier infestations, and second, shifts in disease pressure due to fluctuating rainfall and severe weather events,” says Gail Stratman, Regional Technical Service Manager, FMC U.S.

That variability creates additional challenges.

“Many disease treatments need to take place before there are visible signs of infection,” says Leah Anderson, Senior Vice President and President, WinField United. “If growers had issues with insects in the past, it’s a good bet that they will have issues going into the future.”

The Outlook

“The 2025 growing season is expected to bring dynamic insect and disease pressures, largely influenced by weather patterns,” FMC’s Stratman says. “While precipitation deficits are currently a concern across the Midwest, conditions can shift quickly as we witnessed last year when heavy early-season rainfall turned dry conditions into excessive moisture, which brought about its own set of unique challenges.”

BASF’s Maertens says this winter’s chilly temperatures might temper insect infestations in some regions.

“Last year’s mild winter led to high insect populations early in the season, creating significant management challenges,” Maertens continues. “This year, with a colder winter, I expect insect pressure to be lower, but it’s too early to say for certain. The biggest insect concern in corn remains corn rootworms (CRW). Their populations were slightly lower last year due to wet weather in June, which suppressed larvae numbers in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota. However, those that survived completed their life cycle, laid eggs, and still have resistance to Bt rootworm traits. It’s critical to rely on soil-applied insecticides to control those larvae.”

BASF introduced a new mode of action with Nurizma, that has been effective in controlling CRW larvae, he says.

The country’s other most popular crop has its own host of problems.

“There isn’t just one major pest for soybeans, but we continue to see pressure from Japanese beetles and stink bugs,” Maertens says. “Last year, we also saw a resurgence of soybean aphids in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota — something we hadn’t encountered in quite some time.”

FMC’s Stratman says soybean growers have challenges to overcome.

“Soybean gall midge is an emerging pest that also shown up in some new regions this year,” he says. “We also saw a lot of alfalfa weevil activity last season, more so in the upper Midwest than normal, and with the generally milder winter we experienced, we may be seeing earlier emergence of this pest.”

Click to croplife.com to read the full features.

There is another reason that could impact insect populations.

“We’ve heard a lot of chatter from growers that they plan to stick with corn instead of a traditional corn-soy rotation given market variables for 2025, and that can increase their chance of CRW feeding,” says Aaron Kelley, PhD, Chief Commercial Officer, NewLeaf Symbiotics. “Corn-on-corn operations often lead to more extensive CRW damage, although first-year corn is susceptible from extended diapause.

“Corn rootworm certainly comes with challenges given the variants and the various changes in diapause — it can be difficult to predict,” Kelley continues. “We’re also evaluating fall army worm, wire worm, and stink bugs, as those often come up in our conversation with growers as pests they’d like us to find a biological PPFM (pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophs) diapause solution.”

It’s not just CRW that threatens one of the country’s most popular crops.

“As for disease pressure, tar spot in corn will remain a significant concern,” BASF’s Maertens says. “If the disease persists from the previous year, like we saw last season, the threat will continue to be high. Tar spot was widespread throughout much of the Midwest last season, particularly in Iowa. There will be plenty of inoculant that overwinters from corn residue from last year’s crop, so the threat remains extremely high. If we see the right conditions for disease development this summer, tar spot could be a significant issue again.”

Maertens says tar spot is not the only disease growers will be challenged with this year.

“Last year, Southern rust was a problem, and we’ll continue to monitor for that as well,” he says. “Gray leaf spot and northern corn leaf blight are always a concern, too. In soybeans, we’re keeping an eye on frog eye leaf spot, and we’re also seeing an increase in white mold, especially in the southern areas where it hasn’t been as common in the past.”

Retailers Role

“Ag retailers play a crucial role in helping growers build proactive, data-driven management plans,” FMC’s Stratman says. “By leveraging precision ag tools, monitoring local pest and disease pressure and offering tailored product recommendations, retailers can help growers make timely, informed decisions to protect their crops.”

BASF’s Maertens agrees.

“Ag retailers should encourage growers to actively scout their fields and offer support in identifying pests and diseases” he says. “By working closely with retailers, growers can gain insights into pest pressures and receive recommendations for the appropriate insecticide or fungicide applications.”

As always, return on investment will have an impact on growers choices.

“The ever increasing environmental/residue pressure probably requires additional ecological investments, but the growers are not getting any proper financial compensation from the government (in the form of subsidies) nor from ag retailers (higher prices for more environmentally friendly grown products), bringing their economic situation under more and more pressure,” says Jan Mostert, Head of Biorationals Projects, Certis Belchim.

In addition to products, ag retailers play a critical role in managing insect and disease pressures.

“Ag retailers have the best local knowledge and understand the need for each individual grower’s operation,” WinField’s Anderson says. “Retailers can help growers plan for best practices in managing both insect and disease pressures by recommending proven biological products and how best to place them. Preventative applications and in-season scouting are critical to managing both insect and disease pressures. Retail sellers may recommend a dual-pronged approach of a biological and synthetic product together depending on each field’s unique conditions, management style and other variables.”

Biologicals

Among the challenges facing man-ufacturers are regulatory restrictions. Biologicals can often pick up the slack from products no longer available.

But that’s not always the case, Certis’ Mostert says. One difficulty is the “shrinking of the strong and reliable conventional crop protection products, due to increased regulatory hurdles, while no good alternatives like bio-based replacements are being made available,” he says.

When it comes to biological solutions the regulatory process is complex.

“On a global basis, the regulatory landscape for biological products, particularly for biopesticides and biostimulants, has been dynamic and unpredictable,” says JR Abele, Biocontrol Lead, ProFarm Group. “Active participation in trade associations provides market intelligence and well-established opportunities for direct contact with regulators and policymakers. Active participation in these organizations is necessary to fully appreciate the benefits of these opportunities.

“For pesticides, the USDA Office of Pest Management Policy (OPMP) can also be a good sounding board and supporter for new products that show promise in addressing key challenges for farmers and the food supply chain,” Abele continues.

The benefits are many.

“Today, biologicals are being used as enhancements to synthetics,” WinField’s Anderson says. “Near term, adoption will be slow as proof is needed that they can perform to the level of synthetics and be competitively priced. There are many products being tested that show promise. “Long term, biologicals will be a viable solution to control disease and insects in the row crops.

“The WinField United BioVerified designation is helping to create an industry standard. We’re aiming to equip retailers with data and insights to build confidence in this space and help them be the hero at the farm gate.”

Renaissance BioScience recently partnered with Certis Belchim to develop biopesticide products.

“Our yeast-based platform biopesticide technology can be applied to develop unique biopesticides for many different targeted pests,” says John Husnik, PhD, Co-CEO and CSO, Renaissance BioScience Corp. “Each of these biopesticides is uniquely different from all other biopesticides developed with the technology. It’s really an elegant and hardy biopesticide technology that can be produced at scale and low-cost and which can survive in the environment to deliver the fragile RNAi bioactive molecule.”