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The NDSU Extension weekly podcast In the Pod: Soybean Updates delivers timely insights and expert advice on soybean production.
You're listening to In The Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. Just saying soybean cyst nematode or SCN can make a soybean grower shudder, but there is a group, the SCN Coalition, that has banded together to spread awareness. Sam Markell, NDSU plant pathologist, has the details. Sam, what is the SCN Coalition?
Sam Markell:The SCN Coalition is a really large public private partnership with one focus, and it is to manage soybean cyst nematode.
Bruce Sundeen:Is that what SCN is?
Sam Markell:Yeah. That's what SCN is. So SCN is it's really an important parasite of soybeans, and it's got a long history. It was introduced in the fifties in The US, and boy, in about a half a century, it spread to pretty much every soybean producing state, and it's causing somewhere between 1 and $1,500,000,000 of loss to the soybean crop every single year.
Bruce Sundeen:What is North Dakota's role in this coalition?
Sam Markell:SCN was first found in North Dakota in 2003. Before that, we didn't really care too much about it. Really, it wasn't until the twenty teens that we started to really take notice because it was starting to rob yield and growers. So about 2015, I got together, and of course, I'm from NDSU in North Dakota, I got together with several other pathologists in the North Central States and a few of the companies, And we decided that we were really gonna try to deal with this one in a different way. What a lot of individual states and individual companies were doing was great, but it wasn't making the dent that we needed to protect soybean yield. North Dakota ended up leading this coalition, and part of it was because we were on the leading edge, and part of it was because our growers were really pretty concerned. It was a new thing. So over the course of about four to five different years, we built this partnership, nine agrochemical companies, 24 different universities. And with the help and support of some really good soybean checkoff groups, we launched this coalition and started to make a huge dent right away in grower awareness and what they were doing to manage it.
Bruce Sundeen:What has the Coalition accomplished?
Sam Markell:One of the first things we did is we started with some surveys to figure out what grower awareness was in The US. And between 2015 and 2020, we found that growers, the vast majority had heard our messaging. The majority had changed some management practices. And if you put some numbers to that, we probably saved growers or they saved themselves with our help over a $100,000,000 every year starting in 2018. It's quite remarkable.
Bruce Sundeen:Sam, what's the future of the SCN Coalition?
Sam Markell:The future of the coalition, it looks good. It keeps evolving. So North Dakota's role is changing as well. So we've got lots of states, and we share the leadership. And right now, Nebraska and Ohio are starting to lead it.
Sam Markell:The commodity groups, the industry is very engaged in this as well. And I would suspect that it's gonna keep increasing grower profits. The last thing that the Coalition did was called this SCN profit checker tool, which is remarkable because it's the first time in The US that you can actually go to a grower's field, take a sample, plug in the number into the profit checker tool, plug in a few other things, pH and soil, percent sand, and you can estimate how much yield loss you're losing from SCN. That's remarkable. If you can get in the field, figure it out, talk about what you're losing, then it puts a different marker on what you might invest to manage this pathogen.
Bruce Sundeen:How is it funded?
Sam Markell:Yeah. The funding is the beautiful part about it, and I think it's part of the reason that it So let's start with the checkoff side. So locally, the North Dakota Soybean Council is really influential, and then they contribute to the North Central Soybean Research Program, which is one of the groups that we started with that helped kick this off the ground. And then eventually, we brought in USB, United Soybean Board. They provide support. But then the private partners, the agrochemical companies, they're also providing support. So they've provided direct support. You know, they'll help us with specific outputs or specific things, but then we also work to leverage their media. It's a wonderful thing because when you think about BASF, Syngenta, Bayer, Corteva, they have a wonderful media enterprise. And so when the SCN Coalition works together with them, that messaging gets out, and it gets out in a really meaningful way. It's funded through multiple sources and with leveraged support. And I can't forget the ag media because the ag media is really supportive of this. We've worked together with them in various contexts, whether it's at farm shows or print media or social media, and it's been a wonderful partnership. So it really is a true public private partnership, and it's making a difference.
Bruce Sundeen:Thanks, Sam. Our guest has been Sam Markell, NDSU plant pathologist. You're listening to In the Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council.