Disease
Unlike the early tar spot problem farmers experienced in 2021, the disease wasn’t first reported in Indiana until August this year. Darcy Telenko studies the timing of fungicide applications in battling tar spot.
Problems like tar spot get tons of attention because of the highly visible yield loss they cause in-season. Seedling diseases can pack the same punch. Some experts claim Pythium is the No. 1 disease issue in corn.
Cornfields hit by the disease in 2021 are at risk from a homegrown infection in 2023, if you’re in a corn-soybean rotation. Hard rains prior to crop canopy are an added concern. They splash inoculant onto corn plants.
If your traditional approach to fungicide applications in corn is to wait until you see signs of disease pressure, it could be time to rethink your strategy.
Are your corn hybrids undergoing stress 10 to 15 days before black layer and experiencing top kill? That’s going to hurt kernel depth and knock off those top-end yields you want to combine.
Breeding advances brought an era of advanced disease control. The future of disease tolerance will use advanced breeding with targeted approaches that help maximize corn and soybean yield potential.
With tar spot’s ability to rapidly spread, agronomists fear another wave of the disease will hit the Midwest again this season.
Evaluate your crop’s vulnerability to the destructive force of tar spot.
Availability could be a challenge this season. If you can only make one application, pull the trigger between tassel and R3 in corn and between R2 and R3 in soybeans, advises Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.