Crop protection is becoming increasingly complex. Pathogens continue to evolve, resistance can reduce the effectiveness of existing solutions, regulations are changing, and growers are under growing pressure to make every input count.
At the same time, advances in soil biology are giving growers and agronomists another source of information to better understand what is happening belowground and support more informed crop protection decisions.
DNA-based soil analysis can help identify soilborne pathogens before visible symptoms appear. But detecting a pathogen is only one part of understanding disease risk. By looking at the broader soil microbiome, we can also explore the biological context surrounding that pathogen, including microorganisms and functions that may contribute to natural disease suppression, plant nutrition, and stress adaptation.
Detecting a pathogen in the soil does not automatically mean a crop will develop disease.
Agronomists often explain this through the disease triangle. For disease to develop, three things need to come together: the pathogen must be present, environmental conditions need to favor its development, and the plant needs to be susceptible.
This is why understanding what is happening belowground can be so valuable. With BeCrop®, we can look beyond whether a pathogen is simply present and assess disease risk in the context of the surrounding soil biology, including microorganisms that may naturally help suppress pathogens.
In simple terms, it is not only about understanding who is there, but also what is happening around them. A pathogen may be present without disease developing, while certain biological and environmental conditions can make disease more likely.
This added context gives growers and agronomists another layer of insight to pair with what they already know about the crop, field conditions, weather, and management history.
Biological soil analysis can detect soilborne pathogen pressure before visible symptoms appear. This gives teams a head start on planning and scouting, rather than just reacting to aboveground damage.
In our recent crop protection webinar, our team highlighted an example from watermelon growers in North Florida and South Georgia. Two fields analyzed with BeCrop showed very different Fusarium wilt risk. One showed substantially higher pathogen pressure, while Fusarium wilt was not detected in the sample from the other field.
This data drove a very practical planting decision. The grower had susceptible watermelon varieties grafted onto resistant rootstock. Knowing which field had greater Fusarium pressure told them exactly where to prioritize the resistant crop.
This is a clear example of moving soil biology from simple detection to practical application. Rather than waiting for visible symptoms, growers can use biological data as a proactive tool to map and manage risk.
Want to explore what’s happening in your own soil? Order your BeCrop® Test
Not every crop protection challenge requires the same analytical approach. Sometimes, the goal is to investigate a specific concern or compare a handful of samples. Other times, the priority is mapping how biological conditions vary across an entire field.
BeCrop® Test turns a single soil sample into actionable biological data It empowers growers and agronomists to assess disease risks and vital microbial functions, such as nutrient cycling and stress adaptation, making it the perfect fit for targeted investigations and high-value crops where full-field mapping isn’t required.
BeCrop® Farm adds a spatial perspective to your soil data. By combining biological analysis with smart sampling and field metadata, it maps exactly how conditions vary across an entire field. For crop protection, reveals specific areas of high disease risk, giving you insights needed to prioritize scouting and evaluate management strategies.
Ultimately, it isn’t about choosing a product; it’s about the question you need to answer. If you need detailed biological insights from a particular location or want to compare targeted samples, the BeCrop Test is the right fit. But if you need to map biological variability and disease patterns across an entire field, BeCrop Farm delivers that broader spatial perspective.
Pathogens are not the only microorganisms living in soil.
Soil microbial communities also contain bacteria and fungi that can naturally contribute to disease suppression. Some compete with pathogens for space and resources, while others can inhibit their growth or interact with plants in ways that contribute to their defense responses.
This creates another important layer when interpreting disease risk. Two soils could show similar pathogen pressure while having very different biological communities surrounding that pathogen. Looking only at pathogen presence could miss that difference.
With BeCrop, we can examine pathogen pressure alongside biological functions associated with natural disease suppression. This does not mean that beneficial microorganisms guarantee that a crop will remain disease-free. Instead, they provide additional context that can help us better understand the biological conditions surrounding the potential threat.
One example shared during the webinar came from a vineyard in Spain affected by black foot disease.
The pathogen associated with the disease was detected at comparable levels across different areas of the vineyard. Yet the plants were not showing the same outcome. Symptoms were concentrated in the northern sections, while the southern sections appeared healthy.
When the broader microbial community was analyzed, an interesting difference emerged. The southern areas showed substantially higher levels of Trichoderma, a group of fungi associated with biological disease suppression. Plant material was also analyzed, and the pathogen was more abundant inside plants in the symptomatic northern area.
The presence of the pathogen was therefore an important part of the story, but it did not explain everything that was happening in the vineyard. Looking at the microbial community surrounding it provided another piece of information that helped make sense of what was being observed aboveground.
This is one of the reasons soil microbiome analysis can go beyond simply answering “Which pathogens are present?” Understanding the biological environment around those pathogens can matter too.
Want to dive deeper into soil biology and crop protection? Watch the full webinar on demand
The biological context surrounding crop protection goes beyond pathogens and natural disease suppression. Plants are simultaneously responding to water availability, nutrient status, environmental stress, soil conditions, and many other factors. The soil microbiome participates in several of these processes.
BeCrop analyzes microbial functions related to nutrient cycling, stress adaptation, plant growth promotion, disease suppression, and other processes occurring belowground. Looking at these functions together can provide additional context when trying to understand why a crop or a particular area of a field may be responding differently.
For example, the webinar also explored a corn field where one of the main disease risks identified was associated with hot, dry conditions and plant stress later in the season. By looking beyond the pathogen itself, the biological analysis provided information related to drought-stress adaptation, ethylene regulation, and fungal disease suppression.
No individual biological measurement can tell us with certainty whether disease will develop. But when this information is considered together with field observations, environmental conditions, management history, and agronomic expertise, it can contribute to a much richer understanding of what is happening in the field.
Soil biological analysis does not replace agronomic expertise, field scouting, physical and chemical soil analysis, or established crop protection practices. It adds another layer of information to them.
Knowing where pathogen pressure exists can help identify potential areas of concern. Understanding the biological capacity for natural disease suppression can provide more context around that pressure. Looking at microbial functions related to plant stress and nutrition can help build a more complete picture of the conditions surrounding the crop.
Ultimately, this allows growers and agronomists to go beyond a single question such as “Is the pathogen present?” and explore the bigger picture. How much risk is there? What else is happening biologically? Where might closer attention be needed? And which management options make the most sense when all of that information is considered together?
Whether that means using BeCrop Test to investigate a particular field or compare specific samples, or BeCrop Farm to understand biological variability across a larger area, the objective is the same: turn biological soil data into information that can support better-informed agronomic decisions.
Because understanding what is happening belowground can provide valuable context for the decisions we make above it.