Neonic-Treated Soybean Seeds Aren’t Helping Farmers Kill Pests

One of the most common—and most controversial—insecticides used on soybeans grown in the United States might not be doing exactly what farmers are hoping it would. Planting fields with soy seeds pretreated with neonicotinoids, according to a new study, isn’t going to help combat the crop’s major pest.

The study, published by a coalition of Midwestern universities, led by Purdue, suggests that neonic seed treatments are, for soy at least, a blunt instrument that causes far more devastation for the surrounding environment than the pests being targeted. While the insecticide can help to control pests that attack the plants early on, those bugs rarely devastate the plants. When it comes to soybean aphids, the major crop pest for soy in the upper Midwest, the point in the plant’s lifecycle when the potential for infestation begins comes after the effectiveness of the insecticide, which lasts about three weeks, has tapered off. In other words, the insecticide-treated seed used on 40 percent of soybean acres across the country doesn’t help combat the main pest it’s targeting.

The pest-specific research adds to a study on the correlation between neonic-coated seeds and yields conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which concluded that “neonicotinoid seed treatments likely provide $0 in benefits to growers.”

But while the insecticide may not be helpful in combating soybean aphids (the new research also mentions an number of “high-risk scenarios” in which coated seeds may be effective), the chemical both effectively and indiscriminately kills and harms other insects and wildlife in the surrounding area. Dust kicked up during the planting of coated seeds can drift onto nearby land—the very scenario that sparked a recent lawsuit calling on the EPA to regulate treated seed use as a pesticide application—and as neonics leach into the surrounding environment, they can be absorbed by other plants and insects, killing or harming creatures higher up the food chain.

This fallout from neonic use can last far longer than the three-week window of potency that soy plants grown from treated seeds enjoy. Soil testing conducted in France found that 91 percent of samples contained imidacloprid, a type of neonic, despite treated seeds being planted in only 15 percent of the plot within a year of testing, according to a study published last year in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

Soy is not the only crop commonly planted with treated seeds—80 percent of corn is pretreated with neonics, compared with 40 percent of soybeans—but it nonetheless appears to be a large and largely pointless application of the controversial chemical. The researchers from Purdue and other Midwestern universities involved in the new study said that, in many instances, farmers can use integrated pest management—using bugs to kill other bugs—rather than insecticides.                                                                                

Related stories on TakePart:

• Lawsuit Demands EPA Call a Pesticide a Pesticide

• Bees Are Getting a Buzz off Neonics, and That Could Be What’s Killing Them

• Colony Collapse Disorder Is Not What You Think

Original article from TakePart