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New Web-based Tool Determines if Bt Corn is Profitable - February 2005
January 19, 2005
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - New and emerging technologies will help keep corn growers on top of their pest problems and profitable well into the future, says a professor of entomology at Penn State.
According to Dennis Calvin, timely and accurate information available through Web-based technology can improve production and profits, minimize environmental impacts and keep growers profitable and in business. "Our new, interactive Web-based program can forecast pest problems in a specific area and estimate the potential crop yield loss," said Calvin, speaking at the Pennsylvania Agronomic Education Conference held recently at Penn State.
Calvin works in conjunction with ZedX Inc., an information technology company that specializes in the development of weather-dependent, decision-support products for specific industries such as agriculture and energy, to develop corn and pest phenology models. He helps ZedX link weather models with insect and weed models that enable growers to time pesticide sprays and other management tactics to develop weather data maps. The use of such technology can be a part of a grower's integrated pest management (IPM) program.
IPM aims to manage pests -- such as insects, diseases, weeds and animals -- by combining physical, biological, genetic and chemical tactics that are safe, profitable and environmentally compatible.
By using the weather data maps, Calvin says they've been able to determine what economic impact bio-engineered crops such at Bt corn will have in specific areas. In the development of Bt corn, a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis is added to enable the hybrid to produce toxins that control European corn borer and other pests. The European corn borer, a targeted pest of Bt corn, costs U.S. corn growers more than $1 billion annually in yield loss and crop protection costs. "Once the targeted pest ingests the tissue of the plant containing the Bt crystalline protein, the toxin acts on the insect gut lining causing it to break down, killing the insect," says Calvin. Currently, over 39 percent of the nation's corn acreage is now Bt corn.
However, since seed corn containing the Bt gene costs more than seed without the gene, it is not always profitable for a grower to use the Bt seed. According to Calvin, many factors can affect growing decisions, including geographical location, climate type, planting date, corn market prices among other factors. Calvin developed a tool that takes all of these factors into account and advises the grower whether or not using a Bt hybrid will be profitable. This tool, called the Bt Evaluation Tool (BET), is now available to all U.S. corn growers through the Penn State Web site http://www.essc.psu.edu/bet. "By looking at the weather-pest linked models, we can determine what effect pests, such as European corn borer, will have on a crop by determining the stage of the insect's life cycle and plant maturity. We can then calculate the per acre value of using Bt corn by looking at the average yield, market value and expected loss caused by each insect in the plant," Calvin explains.
According to Calvin, BET can determine yield loss for each insect generation at specific sites throughout the growing period. Thus, growers can better determine their level of risk and if it will be profitable to plant Bt corn or another hybrid. "The tool takes 33 year averages of European corn borer losses and ten year averages of crop costs and compares them to technology costs to determine the average net benefit. The tool is interactive, so you can input your own planting date and relative maturity of the hybrid planted, seeding rates, etc., to see what your economic benefits would theoretically be," he says.
In addition to information provided by BET, maps of weed emergence and insect life stages will be available through Penn State's Department of Entomology Web site at http:// beginning in April. They also hope to develop prediction maps for diseases such as soybean rust in the near future.
Calvin's presentation on pest development prediction models was one of several topics presented at the annual Pennsylvania Agronomic Education Conference. According to Dwight Lingenfelter, conference co-chair and cooperative extension agronomist with Penn State's Crop and Soil Sciences, the goal of the conference is to share ideas, research and knowledge among agronomic educators and agribusiness representatives. "The objective of the society is to promote useful and practical information on plants and soil, biotechnology, soil conservation and the economics of new technology. One of our focus areas is how new technology can improve crop productivity, enhance farm profitability and maintain environmental quality," says Lingenfelter. For more information on the society, see their Web site at http://paes.cas.psu.edu/
The Pennsylvania IPM program is a collaboration between the Pennsylvania State University and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture aimed at promoting integrated pest management in both agricultural and nonagricultural situations. For more information, contact the program at (814) 865-2839, or Web site http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/. To view our archived news releases, see Web site http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/10.htm.