Company promotes lubricant as a way to reduce neonicotinoid threat to bees

by SUSAN MANN

Bayer CropScience has developed a lubricant that will give corn and soybean farmers a new option for reducing dust from neonicotinoid treated seeds.

The new lubricant, made of polyethylene wax, can be used instead of traditional lubricants, such as talc or graphite, and will be available for the 2014 planting season on corn and soybeans in Canada.

Lubricants are recommended by planter equipment manufacturers to help reduce friction and improve planting uniformity. But dust emissions from planting seeds treated with neonicotinoid, an insecticide, “could have potential acute effects on honeybees,” according to a press release on Bayer’s United States website.

Bayer marketing communications spokesperson Derrick Rozdeba says by email some lubricants can result in increased airborne dust particles released from the planting equipment that “could potentially expose foraging honeybees to small traces of seed treatment products if they come into contact with the dust.”

The new lubricant was shown to significantly decrease dust and emissions during laboratory testing, the release says. There was a 90 per cent reduction in total dust using the lubricant versus talc and a 60 per cent reduction versus graphite.

This spring, Bayer tested its product in the field throughout the United States and in Ontario and Quebec in collaboration with major planter equipment manufacturers. Fifty-six growers provided feedback from the trials representing more than 40,000 corn acres. In Ontario, 18 farmers participated in the trial representing 13,000 corn acres, Rozdeba says.

Most growers said the polyethylene wax lubricant was better or equal to the talc or graphite they were currently using, the release says.

Rozdeba says Bayer developed the new lubricant as part of its ongoing commitment to stewardship. Two years ago, it began to investigate alternative lubricants that could reduce the potential of dust emissions. Favourable laboratory testing prompted this year’s field trials “to ensure the new technology would be commercially viable.”

Dan Davidson, president of the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association, couldn’t be reached for comment.

In an April 2013 position statement, the association called on the federal government to suspend all conditional registrations of neonicotinoid products until it’s determined how best to protect all pollinator insects, including honeybees, from the pesticide. It has also asked for independent research into the environmental and ecological impact of the pesticide.

In September, Health Canada’s regulatory pest management agency called for the introduction of a number of measures to protect pollinators from the insecticide, including dust-reducing seed flow lubricants.  BF