Varying weather conditions across rural America have opened the door for not one but multiple diseases to infest a growers’ field at once. However, it is possible to protect against a broad spectrum of diseases while maintaining a high yield potential. Brian Norton, an agronomic service representative with Syngenta, talks about weather conditions in his area and the current conditions of corn and soybeans.
“Recently, we’ve been very fortunate with our growing conditions. We’ve had just enough water to keep everything growing well but not too much water where we’ve had a lot of flooding or oversaturation. Our corn and soybean crops in the state of Missouri, at least, look good. We started with good, dry planting conditions, which allowed for some planting to take place very quickly and get that stand established. Unfortunately, the month of May became very, very moist and very, very wet and shut us down for a few weeks. After that, we moved into June and July, where, again, we continued to get periodic rain like you would want. That early moisture led to a lot of early disease pressure in some of our crops. Corn, we see a lot of gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, and even some tar spot, which are getting well-established across the state of Missouri. Soybeans, some early frog eye leaf spot, probably some of the earliest frog eye leaf spot I’ve seen in quite some time.”
He talks about some of the main diseases to watch for after a lot of moisture.
“For corn, historically, we’d thought about three diseases that we were pretty focused on: Northern corn leaf blight, gray leaf spot, and then we would have southern rust. In the last few years, though, tar spot has become a pretty prevalent disease, especially across the northern third of Missouri and into Illinois and Indiana in those areas. And then all of those, when you put them together, they require some moisture. And in a year like 2024 where we’ve got plenty of moisture in the growing season, we’ve seen the whole mix of those. It’s not uncommon to walk into a cornfield and really find all three of those diseases, and now, here recently, seeing southern rust even blow into those fields as well. So, you flip it onto the bean side of things, we’ve seen a lot of frog eye leaf spots or Cercospora leaf blight, and both are more of our traditional diseases that we’re seeing in soybeans. But again, with the moisture, they’re definitely coming on strong.”
Norton makes his crop protection recommendations.
“Whether it’s corn or beans, in a lot of these fields, we’re not dealing with just one disease. We’ve got a whole gamut of a broad spectrum of diseases. So it’s really important when you think about choosing your fungicide offering that it provides you both broad-spectrum disease protection as well as fungicides that also offer the greener aspect, that being some plant health benefits. So Syngenta has got a nice lineup of our ADEPIDYN® and SOLATENOL® technology products, things like Miravis Neo or Miravis Top with the ADEPIDYN® molecule or Trivapro with SOLATENOL® that offer broad-spectrum disease protection, but also very good plant health benefits even in low disease years. I talk about how good the growing conditions have been across geography, but there are pockets, of course, that have missed those rain events and are experiencing a little bit of drought stress, and having a good broad-spectrum fungicide with cleaner and greener can help you be more consistent in your yield.
To learn more about protecting your corn and soybeans and preserving potential yield, visit BoostYourBushels.com Always read and follow label instructions.