Trends in soybean crop management are covered in Field Day

More than 50 farmers from Esmeralda (RS) and neighboring municipalities participated in a Field Day on trends in soybean crop management, last Friday (04/03), in Esmeralda. The activity was promoted by Emater/RS-Ascar, with support from the Municipal Department of Agriculture and the Rural and Rural Workers Unions.
Three years ago, Rural and Social Extension, in partnership with research, resumed work with soy. This year, in the region of Caxias do Sul, technicians from Emater/RS-Ascar are monitoring properties in four municipalities: Esmeralda, Paraí, Serafina Corrêa and Vista Alegre do Prata, where actions are developed, such as collecting and counting weeds and monitoring of pests and diseases - using simple but efficient techniques, such as cloth beating - and passed on to Embrapa for analysis and research work. Other soybean producers also ended up adopting these practices, such as the Secretary of Agriculture of Esmeralda, Espedito Zocolli de Lima, who participated in the Field Day, together with Mayor Ailton de Sá Rosa and the regional manager of Emater/RS-Ascar Caxias do South, Sandra Dalmina.
The event began in the morning, at Clube Veteranos, with a lecture on integrated pest management, given by Emater/RS-Ascar agronomist, João Villa. According to him, soybean crops are subject to insect attack from germination to harvest. The agronomist spoke about the main insects in the crop, the part of the plant they attack, their relative importance, the changes that have occurred in recent years (insects that were not a problem and became so, and vice versa) and the need for control.
For Villa, the methodology to be used to find out whether chemical control is necessary or not is to beat the plants on the cloth, with the distribution of collection points according to the size of the crop, and counting the insects to verify the population level (of pests, predators, etc.). “Monitoring represents benefits for the environment and for the producer’s pocket,” she says. According to the agronomist, there is a certain level of pest attack that plants tolerate without damage. “The damage caused by bed bugs only needs control when they have pods”, he explains.
As there is still no technology that guarantees production without chemical control, Villa considers pesticides a “necessary evil, which often has to be used, but always rationally, never based on calendars, nor preventively. Among the factors that contribute to the high use of chemical products, he points out monoculture, the lower diversity of species in crops, the decrease in environmental balance and the dependence on inputs, which are sold in the form of packages. “One of the most important practices to be adopted to avoid or reduce chemical control is crop rotation, as it helps to reduce the insect population to levels that do not cause damage and eliminate possible pathogens”, he highlights.
In the afternoon, the producers visited the technical reference unit of farmer Leonir de Vargas, who cultivates eight hectares of soybeans and is monitored weekly by Emater/RS-Ascar. For the producer, the visits were very valuable, as he managed to reduce the number of insecticide and fungicide applications on the crop, which reduces production costs.
On the property, the Field Day featured four stations: monitoring and control of pests and diseases, with Emater/RS-Ascar agronomists Roberta Sabatino Ribeiro and João Villa, and soil management and fertility, with technician Orivaldo Trevisan. The other station was with professionals from the company Sotrima, from Vacaria, who presented application technologies.