Canola continues to be one of the highest-value crops for Prairie growers, but it’s important to protect against losing yield potential early in the season. Strong emergence and healthy plants with good seedling vigour are critical for a high-yielding canola crop, and growers can help achieve this with complete insect and disease protection contained in the LumiGEN™ seed treatment products from Corteva Agriscience.
“LumiGEN represents all the components of the seed treatment package available on Corteva seed genetics,” says Kristen Ratzlaff,” Portfolio Marketing Manager, Seed Applied Technology with Corteva. “Beyond being the umbrella brand, it is the mark of assurance that all the different ingredients and products contained within have been tested to ensure that they perform and fit together to meet the needs of Canadian canola growers.”
LumiGEN currently contains two spotlight products — Lumiderm™ insecticide seed treatment and Lumiscend™ fungicide seed treatment. Lumiderm provides premium insect control of flea beetles and cutworms, and outstanding seedling stand establishment, vigour and biomass. New for 2023, Pioneer and Brevant seeds canola seed will transition to contain Lumiscend fungicide seed treatment, as part of the new LumiGEN package. The package features four active ingredients for broad-spectrum disease protection against airborne blackleg, rhizoctonia, pythium and more.
Early threat protection
“Lumiderm is part of our standard offering on all our canola products,” says Ratzlaff. “The value it continues to provide when it comes to flea beetle and cutworm control makes it a premium product for early seedling vigour and healthy plants.”
Lumiderm provides 35 days of protection, which takes it through the critical growth stage for better seeding growth and stand establishment. Its novel mode of action also makes it an excellent resistance-management tool.
“Side-by-side trials of canola treated with the LumiGEN™ package have already showed canola with a noticeable advantage in plant size, vigour and biomass.”
Mark Johns, Technical Sales Agronomist, Corteva Agriscience
Striped flea beetles continue to appear earlier in the season than the more common crucifer beetles and are less responsive to neonic seed treatments. This is where Lumiderm has an advantage. It works on the muscle system of the flea beetles instead of the nervous system, stopping feeding earlier and faster than neonics on their own. In 192 demonstration strip trials, damage from flea beetle feeding was reduced by 35 per cent on fields treated with Lumiderm compared to those treated with standard neonic seed treatments.
“Lumiderm has proven to be an excellent product for enhanced control of not only flea beetles, but also for control of cutworms,” says Mark Johns, agronomist with Corteva. “This past growing season we had higher-than-usual incidences of cutworms than in previous years, and so the product really had an opportunity to show what it can do.”
Cutworms have also become a problem in different areas of the Prairies than they have in the past. While not an issue every year, they are hard to detect and even more challenging to control. Lumiderm controls all species of cutworm for predictable performance against an unpredictable pest.
Johns says the open fall in 2021, with the early harvest, dry conditions and generally warmer weather allowed the insects to lay eggs and overwinter in the soil. So far the conditions are shaping up in a similar way this year, so a higher incidence of both pests could be in the cards for the next growing season.
Blackleg protection
Lumiscend is a unique new active ingredient for broad-spectrum, multi-race blackleg protection. It is part of the LumiGEN seed treatment package which contains four active ingredients for complete disease protection, designed for Corteva genetics.
“The airborne blackleg protection in Lumiscend is powerful because right now blackleg is one of the most important diseases for canola growers in Canada,” says Ratzlaff. “Lumiscend protects against early-season blackleg, that we know can have a big impact on yield right at the start of your growing season. When paired with Corteva seed genetics, it offers peace of mind to growers.”
Lumiscend translocates through the canola seedling to inhibit the growth of the blackleg fungus, protecting the crop at emergence through the critical infection period, reducing the risk for severe canker development and ultimately, yield loss. Lumiscend also contains broad-spectrum activity against other seedling disease complexes, including pre- and post-emergence damping off, seedling blight and root rot.
“In both our product trials and in our grower plots, Lumiscend has shown excellent crop safety as well as really good results against disease,” says Johns. “The multiple modes of action give the canola enhanced protection against the seedling disease complex. The new LumiGEN package also provides improved protection of rhizoctonia and pythium.”
This past season, Corteva completed field-scale trials at more than 160 sites. Johns says this fall they will be evaluating blackleg in the stands on grower trials to compare the field-scale results to their registration trials.
“Side-by-side trials of canola treated with the LumiGEN package have already shown canola with a noticeable advantage in plant size, vigour and biomass,” says Johns. “Plants grew more evenly than untreated canola. The whole package is insurance to get your target plant stand, which is very important for canola growers.”
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