Soybean aphid infestation
Image credit: Christina DiFonzo, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 US DEED. Cropped for use.
Background
Soybean aphid is the most significant arthropod pest affecting soybeans in North America. Soybean is the largest crop area in Minnesota, with the state’s production third in the nation. Aphids can devastate crops by reducing plant height, pod number, and overall yield. Despite this, there has been a lack of systematic effort to collect, analyze, and report on estimates of the yield losses caused by this pest in farmers' fields. Without this type of comprehensive information, it is difficult to assess risks and determine how to invest limited resources in the decades ahead.
Research questions
- What is the geographical extent, frequency over time, and severity of damage of soybean aphid?
- What are the costs and benefits of developing new or improved pest management strategies?
Outcomes
This project developed a flexible bio-economic pest evaluation workflow which estimates that mitigating the potential losses from soybean aphids yielded an average of $145 million in annual net benefits for Minnesota. Most previous assessments of the crop damage attributed to soybean aphids report a highly-inflated, worst-case loss of 40%, irrespective of the year or the location. Allowing for more realistic spatio-temporal variation in the yield impact of aphids, from 2015 to 2023 we estimate farmers lost an average of 1-3% of their crop to the pest, despite their efforts to mitigate the pest. Researchers' estimates of uncontrolled infestations put the loss as high as 13%.
Looking forward, to combat growing pesticide resistance, they estimate that $10-39M in annual R&D spending is economically justified to safeguard Minnesota’s $5B soybean industry from this pest alone.
News and media
- GEMS spearheads innovative approach to assessing soybean aphid risk (GEMS Informatics, 2024)
- Rethinking soybean aphid risk (MITPPC, 2026)