WHAT’S THE POINT WITH GREENPOINT AG
Juggling Fungicide Variables
Knowing when not to spray is as important as deciding to pull the trigger. Achieving and maintaining success as a farmer is a challenge, to say the least. To be effective, we must stay ahead of the technology learning curve, keep our eyes on the budget and make sound strategic decisions. Fungicide — whether to use it or not — is a good example of these challenges. Unfortunately, there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach that makes financial sense when it comes to spraying fungicides. The successful farmer will weigh a multitude of variables and compare them against current commodity prices before making his or her decision. But first, it helps to fully understand what response-to-fungicide (RTF) rankings mean. When a new hybrid of a rowcrop species — corn, beans, wheat, etc. — is released to the market, Winfield agronomists evaluate them for their RTF. Basically, we spray multiple reps of those hybrids with a fungicide alongside an identical untreated check (set of rows) of the exact same varieties. Then, throughout the year, we conduct disease rankings — pre- and post-application — to get an idea of what the disease pressure is, which fungicide products are working best and so on. At the con20
Cooperative Farming News
clusion of the season, we take all that information, along with yields, look at it holistically and then segregate it into low-, medium- and high-disease pressure. With the hybrids specifically, we evaluate them across all environments. How does Hybrid A respond to a particular fungicide versus Hybrid B? How does the yield turn out? At that point, we can assign them a designation of low-, moderate- and high-response to fungicide, or RTF. What does RTF mean? A low-RTF hybrid means that the yield response was right at or below the break-even point when you consider the fungicide and application costs versus the commodity prices for that year. A moderate-RTF hybrid is right at or above breakeven for those same variables. Sometimes you will gain a little, sometimes you’ll be slightly under. Then, a high-RTF hybrid is always well above the break-even point. They’re no-brainers. Regardless of the disease environment, they will pay. What do these yield differences look like? In 2020,
