Monitoring network can help control the corn leafhopper in Brazil

An old acquaintance of Brazilian producers, the corn leafhopper (Dalbulus maidis) has brought great concern to the countryside in recent harvests. The characteristic insect pest in corn crops, which causes “stunting” to plants, has shown strong attack pressure on cereal crops across the country since the 2020/21 harvest, potentially causing losses of between 20 and 90% of production potential.

In the states of the southern region, for example, the instability of the climate with dry weather and irregular rains favored the enemy's incidence. In Mato Grosso, the largest national producer of the crop, there are also producers concerned about the large increase in cases, and they even considered a “sanitary void” with the suspension of grain cultivation in the first harvest of this year as a palliative.

Given this scenario, with the aim of helping an even greater number of producers in more assertive management of the pest and mitigating greater losses in grain production, Bayer announced the expansion of its Cigarette Combat Squad program. The collaborative pest data network, initially launched last year with a pilot plan on crops in Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, in partnership with farmers and researchers, will now be expanded and could become the largest monitoring network of the Latin American corn leafhopper.

This expansion is being structured with the help of technology from Sima - Integrated Agricultural Monitoring System, an agtech that offers a complete and intelligent platform that allows monitoring in the field in a georeferenced way, analyzing information and generating important insights to assist in decision making.

Sima's system also allows the construction of a database. According to Rafael Malacco, market development manager at agtech, in the specific case of the leafhopper, due to the behavior it presents, it is extremely important that monitoring is analyzed in a more spatial, regional way and is not limited to decisions from plot to plot or farm to farm. farm. “With the platform, installations and monitoring are managed and unified into a single database, facilitating rapid analysis for quick decisions, in addition to building and maintaining historical records that will certainly serve as a basis for various future studies and correlations regarding this adversity”, he highlights.

According to Marcelo Giacometti, Customer Experience Activation Manager at Bayer, with all these differences, Sima demonstrated a fundamental partnership in collecting and interpreting data coming from the field. “With the dynamic reports that we create together, we can analyze areas across Brazil in a simple and agile way, helping rural producers to make the best decisions quickly,” he said.

With the project well structured, with positive results in its first year, now the goal of the creators has become even more ambitious. According to Giacometti, Bayer's idea is to expand quality information about the pest and mitigate the impact of the stunting complex on crops. “I believe we have the potential to create the largest intelligence network on a pest with a high economic impact on agriculture in South America.

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The leafhopper combat squad was structured around an integrated network of information on insect populations, collected in the field weekly and recorded using an application. This way it was possible to create maps and understand the dynamics of the plague; beyond the boundaries of the farmer's plot. These maps helped to raise awareness in the production chain about the need to manage the pest in an integrated way. The participation of monitors, researchers, companies and farmers was synchronized, where each party supported a critical stage of the process: collecting data, compiling diagnoses, interpreting and recommending management in a timely manner.

With the mapping of the Cigarette Combat Squad increasingly robust with more accurate information in a large database, the producer will have several benefits. One of the main things is to have the security of cultivating your corn crop, with sustainability and profitability.

As the Bayer executive says, the goal is to impact as many farmers, technicians and professionals as possible. This is because the information generated by the squad is only useful when it reaches the farmer quickly, in time to adjust its management and avoid the impact of the stunting complex. “All data will be available through our business partners and field teams”, concludes Giacometti.