The Iowa Soybean Association On-Farm Network has released a fungicide management calculator tool it has developed to help growers determine the probability of seeing a profitable return from using fungicides on soybeans.

The calculator allows growers to put in their own soybean prices — either projected or a price they’ve already booked for their crop — and actual product and application costs to see whether fungicide use is likely to pay off. The data used to create the calculator came from 5 years of comparisons made through 282 replicated strip trials across the state using Headline fungicide.

After inputting market price and cost, the calculator returns a graph showing soybean yield response to the fungicide, the break-even yield increase the grower would need to justify fungicide use, the probability of actually seeing a profit, projected profit/loss from using the fungicide, and, finally, the number of years out of 5 that fungicide use could be expected to be profitable.

The calculator is available for use at www.isafarmnet.com/calc.