We’re kicking off another year of test plots here at Maranatha Acres, and this year we have quite a few trials across our corn and soybean acres.
Our first trial of the 2026 season looked at FS Amplivo NemaSoy, formerly known as Nemora, and whether adding it at planting could provide a measurable yield advantage in a field with high soybean cyst nematode (SCN) pressure.
The goal has been pretty simple for us over the last couple of years planting soybeans on sand: find a solution to add soybean yield even in a high SCN environment.
Trial Overview
This was a side-by-side soybean trial planted next to our home farm on May 7, 2026. It was also the first field we actually got planted this spring.
The field had several characteristics that made it a good fit for the trial. This farm has very light sandy soils that has a history of having high SCN pressure. It was planted to corn the last 2 years and is a conventional tillage farm. The image below shows the lighter soil types. The red box in the image is where the trial plot was located in the farm.
NemaSoy Soybean Trial Results
The individual strips showed some natural field-to-field variability, but the average of the three treated and three untreated strips gives us a useful side-by-side comparison.
Across the trial, the NemaSoy treatment averaged approximately 1.1 bushels per acre more than the untreated check. That isn’t a huge yield difference, but in a soybean crop where input costs continue to matter, even relatively small yield increases are worth looking at — especially when the additional input cost is relatively low.
A Look at the Individual Strips
The individual comparisons weren’t identical, which is normal in a field-scale trial.
The untreated strips yielded:
- 28.87 bu/ac
- 30.31 bu/ac
- 29.81 bu/ac
The NemaSoy-treated strips yielded:
- 28.04 bu/ac
- 32.64 bu/ac
- 31.65 bu/ac
That variation is exactly why we don’t want to look at just one strip and draw a conclusion.
One treated strip actually yielded less than its neighboring untreated comparison, while the other two treated strips showed a larger advantage. Looking at the average across the three comparisons gives us a better picture of what happened across the trial.
What Does the NemaSoy Yield Advantage Mean Economically?
NemaSoy product costs $7 per unit. (For this trial, the NemaSoy product was provided to gather some on-farm data)
Using a soybean price of $12.50 per bushel, the break-even point is actually pretty reasonable:
$7 ÷ $12.50 = 0.56 bushels per acre
So, the treatment needed to add roughly 0.5 to 0.6 bushels per acre just to cover its cost, which isn’t much.
Our trial showed an average advantage of approximately 1.1 bushels per acre – which again isn’t much of a difference.
Using the rounded 1.1 bushel advantage:
1.1 bu/ac × $12.50 = $13.75 additional revenue
After subtracting the $7/acre NemaSoy cost, that leaves an estimated:
+$6.75 per acre ROI
That’s based solely on the results from this trial and the $12.50 soybean price assumption. Obviously, the economics will change as soybean prices or product costs change.
What Did We Learn?
The biggest takeaway from this first 2026 soybean trial is that NemaSoy provided a measurable yield advantage in this particular high-SCN field.
The advantage was approximately +1.1 bushels per acre, which was enough to cover the $7/acre product cost at a $12.50 soybean price and produce an estimated $6.75/acre return above the treatment cost. We would have liked to see a larger advantage, but it is encouraging. It’s also important to keep the results in perspective.
This is one trial, on one field, in one growing season. A 1.1-bushel advantage here doesn’t mean all of our acres will be treated with it in 2027. We may run this trial again on a different farm next year to see what it does in yet another growing season.
That’s really the point of doing these trials.
We’re trying to build our own local data over time and figure out which products, varieties, and management practices consistently make sense on our farm.
Why Did We Test NemaSoy?
The main reason we wanted to run this trial was to see if this newer product would add bushels in a real high SCN pressure field.
Soybean cyst nematode is one of the yield-limiting factors we have to manage in soybeans, particularly in our lighter ground. When we’re looking at an input designed to potentially provide an advantage in that type environment, we’d rather see what happens on our own farm than simply purchasing a product and relying on a product claim or a result from somewhere else.
That’s one of the reasons we continue to run these side-by-side trials.
The conditions here at Maranatha Acres aren’t going to perfectly represent every farm, but they give us another piece of information when we’re making decisions for our own acres.
Why On-Farm Trials Matter
Every year brings different weather, different crop conditions, and different challenges. An input that works well in one environment may not produce the same response in a different environment.
That’s why we’re continuing to put products and varieties side-by-side under our own management.
Our goal isn’t to say that one product or practice is right for everyone. It’s to collect real-world data from our fields, look at the economics, and see what holds up over time.
For this year’s first soybean trial, NemaSoy came out ahead of the untreated check by about 1.1 bushels per acre. Next year it may be a different result.
As always, these results are from our farm and our specific growing conditions. They are not intended as a recommendation, but rather as another data point for farmers looking at how these products perform in the field.
*NOTE: FS Amplivo NemaSoy was provided to us by our FS Invision/HiSoy seed dealer to gather data.