 Today I'll be talking about the use of Heligen as a new technology for soybean insect pest management. So to kind of start off, what is Heligen? Heligen is a highly specific, naturally occurring virus. It's Helicovarpa-Armedra MPV. Here, MPV is what we call it. One of the important things to remember about this virus is that, like I said, it is highly specific. It will only control one specific pest, which is the corn earworm. It's also known as bullworm, soybean podworm. It has several different names. It will also control the tobacco budworm. So if you think those old heliothine complex, that's the only species that this virus will control. For this talk, since we're talking about soybeans, we'll call them podworms. But just know it is the corn earworm or cotton bullworm is the same animal. So with that, with it being highly specific, it's very safe on beneficial arthropods and insects. It will not harm any honeybees, things like that in the field, completely safe on them. But with that, it's also completely safe on other pests. So if you have soybean loopers in the field, if you have stink bugs, something like that, it will have no activity on those insects. It will only affect podworms. This virus is produced by a company called Agbiotech. It's originally an Australian company. They moved to the U.S. in the early-mid 2000s. They're now in Dallas-Fort Worth area, where they do produce this virus here in the U.S. It's a Group 31 insecticide, so that as a mid-gut paratroopic membrane disruptor, essentially the virus infects these worms and ruptures their mid-gut and the virus begins to leak out and kill the worms. So one of the most important things about this product is when do we use it? So our threshold for healogen is much lower than it is with synthetic chemistry. We're going at a threshold of two to five small podworms per 25 sweeps. So what do we call a small podworm? Ideally, we want to use this product when the population is around a quarter of an inch in length. We can go up to a half an inch, but when you start getting any larger than that, up to three quarters of an inch or larger, we're going to want to use synthetic chemistry. And the reason for that, there's a couple of them. One is these worms are going to continue feeding until they die. So those, particularly in the first three to five days after infection, they'll continue feeding. As worms get larger, like humans, they eat more, so they do more damage at that point. So it's important that we control these worms before they get into the fourth, fifth, and sixth instar, where they really do a lot of feeding. A lot of these caterpillars will do almost 80% of their feeding in the last two instars that they go through. So it's important that we kill the worms before they get that big. The labeled use rate in soybeans is anywhere from 1.28 to 1.6 ounces per acre, so that the low rate is one gallon of the virus will treat 100 acres a gallon to 100. And that's going to run you anywhere from $5.56 to $6.88. So that's a pretty economical option for us. Just keep that in mind when you're comparing it with a lot of synthetic chemistries that cost more. You know, we're putting out a product that doesn't quite cost as much, so we can't exactly have the same expectations of this virus as we do those chemistries. And we'll talk about that a little bit later in the presentation. One of the big questions that we'll go ahead and address now is, can I tank mix this virus with an automatic fungicide? And the answer to that question is yes. The answer to that question is also no. It really depends. Are there pod worms in the field at the time of application? If there are, then you can absolutely go ahead and mix the virus in with your fungicide and get an infection started. If there are no pod worms in the field, there's nothing for the virus to infect. We only have about 24 hours of true residual in the field, so essentially that spray will not infect any worms and the virus will not propagate later in the season. So now we're looking at, you know, what do we expect after we make an application? As I said, the expectations for this virus are going to be a little bit different than the expectations of synthetic chemistry. So for the first, you know, the day of to about three days after application, larvae are going to seem pretty normal. You will not really be able to see a lot of difference between an infected larvae or podworm and a healthy podworm. However, once we move up to three and really between five and eight or ten days, that's when we really start to see some differences with the infected larvae. One of the kind of odd things about this virus, but neat nonetheless, is that when infected, the podworms tend to move up towards the sunlight. So when they do that, they're coming up to the top of the soybean canopy, which actually makes them a little easier to collect in the sweep net. So a lot of times, if we come in at five or seven days after application to try to see the effectiveness of our spray, we'll catch more podworms at that point than we did prior to applying. And as I said, that's very common. These podworms are moving up to the top of the canopy. They'll begin to sweat. You'll see very small water beads on their backs, and that is essentially the virus starting to leak out of their bodies. The larvae will also start to feed less. You'll see a little bit of etching often on top of leaves in the top of the canopy. They'll start to shrink a little bit. And then just before they liquefy and die, they'll adhere themselves to the leaf. So at that point, once the larvae liquefies, it releases millions of viral particles into the field, which can serve as a source of secondary infection for populations of podworms that were not present at application. So here's just looking at some of the early symptoms that we'll see in those first three to five days maybe. Larvae will tend to look swollen. We'll call that a cigar-shaped larvae. The sweat beads you see there on the back of that caterpillar. And then also they'll lose control of their hind legs. So if you've got one in a sweep net and you put it on your hand, you can kind of mess with them a little bit, and they're just not quite as active as normal healthy podworms are. So here's some images of the later symptomology once the larvae have begun to adhere themselves to the leaves and liquefy. You see it looks pretty gross, but this is all just viral particles being released back into the field that are going to serve as a source of secondary infection. Now we'll note in these pictures, these are all large larvae. Hopefully in your field you won't see images like this making for really good pictures to show the symptoms, but hopefully in your field you've sprayed this product on very small podworms and you won't see caterpillars this large dying in your field. They'll die much sooner than this. So I'm not going to get into a lot of data slides and kind of bog this talk down, but I did want to show this one slide and share it with me. It's a summary of 22 trials conducted in the mid-south with university and private research people evaluating helogen against the chemical standard used for podworm management in each of those different areas across the mid-south. What you see is helogen performed pretty well. There's a little bit of a lag in performance depending on what rating you look at. It's maybe not quite as good as the chemical standard at any individual rating, but really over time it provides effective control and that's something that I've mentioned when you refer back to the price of this product. It doesn't cost as much as some of these other chemical standards so we can't always expect the exact same out of it at three days after application. We need to give it a little bit more time and be patient with this virus. So some of the keys to success with helogen. Scouting and identification is critical. We've talked a lot about the size of larvae. They've got to be hopefully a quarter of an inch, no longer than half an inch, or to get the most effective efficacy out of the spray. Again, if the majority of the larvae are greater than three-fourths of an inch, you're going to want to use a different product or at least maybe tank mix with something that will provide immediate protection of the crop. Scouting and identification are on there again because I just really want to drive home how important that is that we've got to make sure we're looking at pod worms and not velvet bean caterpillars or something like that and make sure we've got a good understanding of the size of these larvae when we spray. Coverage is very important on the label. Acbotec lists a minimum of three gallons per acre by air. I think they'd like to see probably closer to five gallons per acre if possible. By ground rig they're wanting at least ten gallons per acre. It's very important that we get a good uniform coverage in the first initial infection and having a good GPA is critical for that. Another thing to remember is product viability. This product is a living organism so it's important that we don't expose it to very hot temperatures. Also try to keep it out of direct sunlight. The virus is protected in what's called occlusion bodies. These are essentially casings that protect the viral bodies and they are rapidly broken down by UV light, heat, and pH. It's important to keep it out of direct sunlight. Try to keep it as cool as we can. If we need to add in a buffer or an acidifier to the tank if our pH is going to get above an eight. Here's just again looking at some of the different caterpillars that we may find in the soybean field in Tennessee. Green clover worms, velvet bean caterpillars, soybean loopers. Sometimes if we're not looking close enough we might just say oh yeah we got pod worms and go to spray but I just really want to drive on this fact that this product only works on the pod worms. It's not going to control silver spotted skippers. It's not going to control painted lady larvae only pod worms. So we have to make sure that we're scouting and identifying the proper insects at the time of application. So since this is a virtual field day and we're unfortunately not able to have a lot of questions and answer time for this I kind of came up with a couple of different questions that are pretty commonly asked by people who are new to this virus and even people who have a lot of experience with it because like I said it is very different from our normal chemistry. So the first one is what's the residual of this product? Well the residual lasts about 24 hours if you consider a true residual. As I've mentioned it is readily broken down by UV light high temperatures and high pH. So the general rule is we get 24 hours on the leaf before all the occlusion bodies are degradated and the virus at that point dies. So that's why it's very important that we have larvae in the field when we spray because you've got about 24 hours to get good initial infection to try to establish the virus. At that point when larvae that were infected in the original 24 hours die they then release more virus into the field which can serve as a source of a secondary infection or a third infection, whatever you have but that's why it's very important that we have worms in the field when we spray. So here's a slide just kind of demonstrating that residual air quotes, residual control. You'll see a little bit of a lag in control if another flight of pod worms come in and eggs hatch. You see at seven days it looks helogen is similar to the chemical standard then at 14 days there's a spike there in the population that was when the secondary hatch those were all small larvae in the field and then at 21 and 28 days after application the virus takes back over and we get control so it just takes a little bit of patience, a little bit of time walking the field and to get comfortable with it before you really see these results. Another question is on rain fastness which I think is pretty common for even a lot of synthetic insecticides at times. So for this product basically we need it to at least dry on the leaf, on the label for helogen it states to avoid applying helogen if heavy rain which they deem greater than 0.4 inches per hour is expected within one hour after application. So it's very important that we get dry on the leaf before a heavy rain so we want to make sure that the pod worms are actively feeding at the time of application and really a light rain can even help spread the virus to the lower parts of the canopy where it's a little bit harder to get penetration and that can be very beneficial for us in controlling worms on pods lower in the canopy. And also the use of NPV is much more effective in high humid warm temperatures. So if you do have a light rain or something coming that can even help the efficacy of the virus. Another question, does it have to be stored in the cooler all the way to the field? So this is something that gets brought up a lot with talking about trying to keep it out of hot temperatures trying to keep it out of the sunlight. Well, do I have to have a special cooler when I buy it at retail or wherever I pick it up from until I get it to the field to put it in my sprayer? And no, you really don't. You know, you need to be careful with it. You can read here the different storage regulations that Agbiotech has studied and their claims for how long the virus will remain viable at different storages. But really within about a 36-hour period the virus seems to be pretty stable anywhere from 77 to 95 degrees temperature. It is important, you know, like I said, to try to keep it out of the sun if possible. You know, just try to avoid those long periods of direct sunlight on the virus. So then lastly, can I spray this in strips across the field? I know you've probably heard some talk about how it spreads and the virus really can spread a long way either on its own or with help from beneficial insects, wind, rain, infected podworms can move it up and down the plant canopy and it can spread miles without spraying it. However, as we've talked a lot about, those first 24 hours are critical for establishing the virus and getting prolonged activity weeks after the spray. And in order to do that, we need a good homogenous application. So for that, we really need to go ahead and spray the whole field. It can take the virus days or weeks to move effectively so you're giving up a lot of control and a lot of initial infection if you're spraying strips across the field. It's very important that we try to spray the entire field with this virus. So some of my just closing comments, you know, this talk we focused on soybeans but Heliogen also can be used in sorghum to control corn earworms. Just keep in mind the price and remember the expectation that it's not going to behave the same way that synthetic chemistry do. It's going to be a little bit slower. It's not going to be as fast. So just keep that in mind. It's very important that we go at the right size. We need larvae to be ideally a quarter of an inch, really no larger than half an inch for optimized kill and do remember that they are going to continue feeding until death. So if you need immediate protection you may want to go with a different chemistry or perhaps tank mix something that will provide some immediate protection and keep a little bit, some larvae in the field for the Heliogen to infect. But if you're really in a pinch you do not want to use this product due to the slow-acting nature of the kill. So thank you for joining in today. If you have any questions or comments about Heliogen you can reach out to me. You see my email there. Also Dr. Scott Stewart at Tennessee has a lot of experience with this product as well and we'd be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.