Soybean insects are a persistent threat to your growers’ fields. It’s up to you as an ag retailer to help them confidently maintain the best protection against soybean pests by understanding how to bridge their risk-management strategy from treated seeds early in the season to foliar insecticides for soybeans as plants mature.
Follow these guidelines to set the right expectations upfront for growers and ensure they maintain proper soybean pest control until harvest.
Manage expectations for limited seed-treatment efficacy window
It’s important to let your growers know that neonicotinoid seed treatments provide only two to three weeks of systemic protection in soybean tissue. Protection generally drops off quickly by the V2 growth stage.
To ensure continuous protection beyond the planting window, help your growers plan to combat soybean insects with a whole-season mindset. This will help them avoid a false sense of security that crumbles as new waves of pests arrive.¹
Guide growers through the protection gap to enhance soybean insect pest management
As a retailer, you can step into the gap and help growers protect their soybean investment between the time seed treatment efficacy expires and aphids and soybean defoliators arrive about the middle of summer.
Set aside your sales cap and focus on partnering with growers as their local crop protection solutions expert.
Establish a scouting protocol for threshold-based management of soybean insects
Help your growers implement a routine field-scouting protocol beginning at V2 stage to monitor for insects that chew, pierce and suck plants. Share that scouting is the most reliable way to decide if and when a foliar insecticide application is needed. It also creates opportunities for you to provide your growers with agronomic expertise and timely product recommendations if infestation levels have reached specified thresholds.
Explain that your goal is to optimize crop productivity while minimizing cost to the grower. That means your pest level will vary from one field to another, and that will determine whether or not you apply insecticides for soybean aphids and other pests.
Aphids are a particularly good discussion topic when visiting with growers about soybean pest control. That’s because aphids are extremely damaging and often written off as already being covered by neonicotinoid seed treatments. Yet those treatments protect seedlings for just about three weeks before aphids do their worst damage during the late vegetative and bloom stages. Thus, a multipronged approach to treatment is likely to be needed.
Know the basics of soybean scouting. Good methods include whole-plant counts, which can be conducted through R5. If your grower is averaging 250 aphids per plant and more than 80% of plants have aphids, with populations growing, they’ve likely hit the economic threshold for an insecticide application.²
Some key BASF products designed for the most aggressive soybean insects include:
Experts are available to help your growers protect their crops against soybean insects. Reach out to a nearby extension office agent or a crop protection company professional like your regional BASF representative.
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Endnotes
- Krupke, Christian H., and John L. Obermeyer. Soybean Insect Control Recommendations. Purdue University Extension,https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publications/E-77/E-77.html. Accessed 2 Mar. 2026.
- Koch, Robert, and Bruce Potter. “Scouting for Soybean Aphid.” University of Minnesota Extension, reviewed 2023,https://extension.umn.edu/soybean-pest-management/scouting-soybean-aphid#speed-scouting-1353561. Accessed 2 Mar. 2026.
