birds known to destroy
1M+
acres of field and sweet corn every year
before the crop can even emerge.
Prevent birds from eating your newly planted corn seed. Avipel is the first scientifically proven corn seed treatment to stop birds from eating newly planted seed.
Avipel is made from an organic plant-based chemical that can help produce bigger corn crop yields on your farm.
If you’re like many corn growers, as you prepare to plant corn this season, you probably have many concerns about how bird damage can negatively impact your corn crop and your farm financially.
Bird damage to corn can start as soon as your planter puts the seed in the ground. Birds come to freshly planted fields as they offer a variety of food sources such as bugs and worms. When they discover the corn seeds, they quickly focus on them as a food source. Don’t feed your valuable corn seed to birds!
1M+
before the crop can even emerge.
Wildlife biologists report that bird populations are increasing, with pest birds having more of an impact. In many areas throughout the United States, birds have been identified in destroying more than 1 million acres of field and sweet corn every year before the crop can even emerge.
Corn is especially vulnerable to bird populations because it is planted at a time of year when other food sources are limited. Additionally, the corn planting season coincides with birds’ preparation for migration and breeding season in many regions of the United States. When a flock discovers corn seed, a highly desirable food source, it can ravage your fields of corn seed. This damage isn’t always clearly apparent as bird damage because spring rains often fill in the holes and other evidence of bird presence.
As a grower reliant on your corn crop to be profitable, you can’t go weeks in the dark, only to find that many of your corn seeds have been taken.
Birds target corn seed as a food source because they use the starch from corn for egg production. Because breeding couples eat together, male birds generally eat the same food source as their female partners. The average bird consumes about 200 seeds daily.
Different bird species use different methods to pull corn seed out of the ground. Cranes use their bills to peck seeds out of the ground, for example, and pheasants or turkeys scratch out corn seed with their talons, or claws.
Years ago, organophosphate insecticides used to treat seeds either tasted bad or, if enough was eaten, killed birds. These chemicals have been removed from the market. In recent years, however, a safe and effective corn seed treatment option has emerged to help you prevent bird damage in your cornfields: Avipel.
Avipel bird repellent prevents blackbirds, boat-tailed grackles, crows, European starlings, grackles, pheasants, red-wing blackbirds, ring-neck pheasants, sandhill cranes, starlings and turkeys from consuming planted corn seeds. Avipel is available to farmers, growers and/or producers as a liquid application.
Growers across America prefer Avipel because it is not only effective in helping safeguard corn seed but nonsystemic to corn, nonlethal to birds and nontoxic to plants and fish. Endorsed by the International Crane Foundation, Avipel has been shown to cause no side effects that could be costly. It also causes no groundwater contamination, ensuring growers’ aquifers and wells remain safe.
Avipel’s active ingredient is 9,10-anthraquinone (AQ). This is an organic chemical found naturally in many plant species, from aloe vera and rhubarb to greater plantains and sennas.
No matter the bird species causing the damage in a corn field, the active ingredient in Avipel causes a gut reaction without harming the bird. These birds and their flocks quickly learn to avoid seeds treated with Avipel and begin foraging for other sources of nourishment, enabling your cornfield to remain fully protected.
Avipel continues to work throughout the vulnerable period in which remnants of the seed kernel remain as a food source. This can last as long as 30 days after planting.
AQ
Avipel manufacturer Arkion Life Sciences has researched and developed bird repellency products for more than a decade in the lab and in the field. Avipel studies conducted by the USDA and other organizations have demonstrated this corn seed treatment’s efficient protection of corn seed.
Avipel is sold by local agriculture retailers and corn seed suppliers. Contact your local Avipel representative to learn more about purchasing Avipel so you can start protecting your corn crop with the ultimate bird repellent.
Corn growers wanting to learn more about Avipel, including avian depredation to planted cereal crops, may explore application guides, independent research studies, USDA state-specific labels and more information.