his year’s record-breaking soybean crop is masking problems that lurk beneath the soil, warns Palle Pedersen, head of seedcare product marketing at Syngenta.

"We have a tremendous crop out there. People don’t worry about what they can’t see," says Pedersen, who served as Iowa State University (ISU) Extension’s soybean specialist from 2003-2010.

But the threat is very real. Soybean cyst nematode (SCN), regarded as the most yield-limiting soybean pest in the United States, is overcoming the resistant gene that protects the vast majority of soybean varieties, Pedersen says.

"Resistance is breaking down very rapidly, and there are no ...