A-MAIZE-ing Impacts!
Farmers across the nation grow more than 91.5 million acres of corn worth about $66 billion dollars each year. Working together, research and Extension professionals at land-grant universities are improving corn production. Their work is reducing costs for growers, improving yields, and protecting food safety.
To provide guide corn pest management programs, a multistate team compiles data from 27 states and four Canadian provinces and estimates total annual damage to corn from insect pests. These data provide a reliable baseline so the effectiveness of management programs can be determined.
Iowa State University and other partners coordinate a corn rootworm monitoring network, which now includes 12 states and five Canadian provinces. The website had 18,000 views between 2021 and 2025. In Iowa, producers estimate this information saves an estimated $40 to $160 million statewide each year.
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension expanded their text message-based corn pest reports. Users estimated the information was worth about $42 per acre to producers and $80 per acre to crop consultants.
Multistate research project members with Michigan State University and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension developed the Handy Bt Trait Table, which provides unbiased information about the performance of commercial Bt corn traits for producers, crop consultants, scientists, and regulators. The website has an average of 3,000 visitors per year. Project members also facilitated multistate and international monitoring networks that have provided early warning of Bt-resistant populations of many different corn insect pests. Avoiding unnecessary use of Bt corn cuts costs for growers and slows the development of Bt resistance.
Scientists have found effective ways to fight insect pests in corn. For example, studies by researchers at Cornell University, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Iowa State University, University of Illinois, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln showed that naturally occurring microscopic worms that cause disease in insects (entomopathogenic nematodes) could help control soilborne insect pests of corn.
Scientists at the University of Florida, University of Kentucky, North Carolina State University, Texas A&M University, and Virginia Tech helped determine the effect of rye cover crop termination timing on pests, diseases, and corn crop performance.
Toxic molds often develop in corn and other grains when they are stored or handled improperly, creating health hazards for livestock and humans that consume them. As part of a multistate team, researchers identified genes that influence resistance to toxic molds, helping scientists breed corn with stronger resistance, and University of Illinois scientists designed a custom system that identifies toxic mold in corn kernels.
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