ArticleScientific reports2019
Neonicotinoid seed treatments of soybean provide negligible benefits to US farmers.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Changes in soil microbial communities after exposure to neonicotinoids: A systematic review.Environmental microbiology reports · 2023Pooled it
- Interseeding cover crops into established corn fields affects invertebrate abundance and diversity and elevates the activity of generalist predators.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2026Article
- Commercial planting of genetically modified maize lowers pest damage, yield loss and pesticide usage in Northeast China.Pest management science · 2026Article
- Marginal causal effect of fungicide seed treatments on soybean yield and uncertain profitability in the US Midwest.Scientific reports · 2026Article
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- Effects of common co-occurring pesticides (a neonicotinoid and fungicide) on honey bee colony health in a semi-field study.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Implementing IPM in crop management simultaneously improves the health of managed bees and enhances the diversity of wild pollinator communities.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Chronic exposure to insecticides impairs honeybee optomotor behaviour.Frontiers in insect science · 2022Article
- IPM reduces insecticide applications by 95% while maintaining or enhancing crop yields through wild pollinator conservation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- A machine learning interpretation of the contribution of foliar fungicides to soybean yield in the north-central United States.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Challenges for Adoption of Integrated Pest Management (IPM): the Soybean Example.Neotropical entomology · 2021Review
- Developing a decision-making framework for insect pest management: a case study using Aphis glycines (Hemiptera: Aphididae).Pest management science · 2021Article
- Opinion: Neonicotinoids pose undocumented threats to food webs.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic pesticides. Part 4: Alternatives in major cropping systems.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2020Review
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
23 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides worldwide and are typically deployed as seed treatments (hereafter NST) in many grain and oilseed crops, including soybeans. However, there is a surprising dearth of information regarding NST effectiveness in increasing soybean seed yield, and most published data suggest weak, or inconsistent yield benefit. The US is the key soybean-producing nation worldwide and this work includes soybean yield data from 194 randomized and replicated field studies conducted specifically to evaluate the effect of NSTs on soybean seed yield at sites within 14 states from 2006 through 2017. Here we show that across the principal soybean-growing region of the country, there are negligible and management-specific yield benefits attributed to NSTs. Across the entire region, the maximum observed yield benefits due to fungicide (FST = fungicide seed treatment) + neonicotinoid use (FST + NST) reached 0.13 Mg/ha. Across the entire region, combinations of management practices affected the effectiveness of FST + NST to increase yield but benefits were minimal ranging between 0.01 to 0.22 Mg/ha. Despite widespread use, this practice appears to have little benefit for most of soybean producers; across the entire region, a partial economic analysis further showed inconsistent evidence of a break-even cost of FST or FST + NST. These results demonstrate that the current widespread prophylactic use of NST in the key soybean-producing areas of the US should be re-evaluated by producers and regulators alike.
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