Your growers deserve the best guidance on using corn insecticides to limit corn insect pressure, which often peaks from mid- to late summer. To mitigate the risk of corn rootworm damage and other threats, growers need to adopt effective practices that also avoid encouraging insecticide resistance.
Here’s your guide to helping growers use corn rootworm insecticides the right way and find the best insecticide for corn as part of a balanced integrated pest management plan.
Putting corn rootworm damage in perspective
Corn rootworm is extremely destructive. It claimed an estimated 342 million bushels of U.S. corn in 2024, more than half of all North American grain lost to invertebrate pests.¹ To make matters worse, there is no single control method known to provide 100% protection against corn rootworm.²
Why an integrated management approach works best
Your growers will benefit most from a strategic combination of an integrated pest management plan and corn insecticides. Evidence-based practices that your corn growers should consider include:
- Weed control to eradicate volunteer corn and grassy plants that could harbor pests
- Regular crop rotation between corn and non-host crops to reduce pressure.
- Scouting of fields with known pest problems to locate and address damage for the following crop.
- Seed selection to ensure Bt traits are effective against anticipated pests
- Integration of multiple soil applied insecticide modes of action to reduce the chance of resistance
Be aware that Bt-resistant corn rootworm is something your growers must monitor even if they don’t raise continuous corn. That’s because corn rootworm can infest their crops after immigrating from a neighbor’s continuous corn land.³
Grower options for corn rootworm insecticides
As a trusted retail partner to local growers, you can recommend products such as Nurizma®. This in-furrow insecticide targets a unique receptor site in rootworm to protect growers’ corn seeds.
Importantly, Nurizma shows no cross-resistance with existing modes of action. That means it’s an effective supplemental management tool that can control underground pests that might develop resistance to Bt traits and other in-furrow products. The best insecticide for corn is one that protects today’s crop while shielding against future threats, including resistance.
This insecticide for corn can also be used to protect against pests such as:
- Seed corn maggots
- White grubs
- Wireworms
When strategizing with your growers, emphasize the value of long-term field sustainability. This means rotating through the products they use with different modes of action to ensure those products continue to be effective against pests for many seasons to come.
An in-furrow corn insecticide can help extend the quality and productivity of fields where they grow corn. Do insecticides increase the yield of a corn crop? Not directly—but you can explain to growers that these products help preserve potential yield from damage caused by belowground pests. An in-furrow corn insecticide can be effective for corn rootworm.
Experts are available to help your growers make the right corn pest-management decisions. Encourage them to reach out to a nearby extension office agent or a trusted adviser such as their regional BASF representative.
________________________________________________
Endnotes
- Reisig, Dominic, et al. “Corn Invertebrate Loss Estimates from the United States and Ontario, Canada — 2024.” Crop Protection Network, 17 Feb. 2025,https://cropprotectionnetwork.org/publications/corn-invertebrate-loss-estimates-from-the-united-states-and-ontario-canada-2024. Accessed 23 Feb. 2026.
- Carroll, Matthew, PhD. “Managing Corn Rootworm Pressure.” Iowa Soybean Association’s Iowa Soybean Review, 6 Jan. 2026,https://www.iasoybeans.com/newsroom/article/isr-january-2026-managing-corn-rootworm-pressure. Accessed 23 Feb. 2026.
- Wangila, David S., et al. “Considerations for Managing Corn Rootworm — It’s Not Too Late.” CropWatch, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, 10 July 2025,https://cropwatch.unl.edu/considerations-managing-corn-rootworm-its-not-too-late/. Accessed 23 Feb. 2026.
