Reducing the cost of soybean production is of great interest to many farmers across the nation. This is one potential area that can help ensure that their farms are sustainable for many generations. When reducing production costs, it is important to ensure that profitability is not also reduced. There are situations that maximizing profitability requires investment in production costs. One such area is foliar pesticide applications. It is well-known that when insect and pathogen pests are present at high enough levels that foliar pesticide applications will be profitable. However, there are also reports that yield, and in some cases, profitability is increased when foliar pesticides are applied when pests are below university thresholds.
The goal of this project is to determine whether low-cost, low-input soybean management is more or less profitable than more intensive, higher-input management strategies (pesticide applications when thresholds are less than University recommendations) in KY.
This project seeks to identify if low-cost, low-input soybean management is as profitable as more intensive agronomic management. Specifically the profitability of foliar pesticide (insecticide only; fungicide only; insecticide + fungicide) applications at the ?beginning pod? growth stage will be examined in both full-season and double-crop soybean in Kentucky. The direct benefit to soybean producers is identification of the an agronomic management program for soybean that will result in the most economic return to soybean producers (i.e. greatest profitability).
The specific objectives of this study are to: 1) Determine the defoliation rate and the insect populations at the time of R3 and University recommended pesticide applications