Agronomist comments below
If we do start to spot this disease in fields in the area don’t panic and begin spraying too early. Stick to the plan. We’re still a few weeks away from tassel and it’s certainly something to monitor, but we have good tolerance built into our hybrids and weather will determine how it develops moving into the next few weeks leading to tassel. At worse if we see rapid development in certain fields we may need to move the fungicide app a little earlier than we are used to maybe up to pre-tassel, but as long as growers have a plan to spray a fungicide around tassel timing I would recommend sticking with that plan and just continue monitoring your fields. The only change I would potentially make is if a grower is considering a single mode fungicide or no fungicide application, I would certainly start to get those logistics thought out and headed in a direction toward a multiple effective mode fungicide product at tassel.
Also worth mentioning there have been no sightings of Southern Rust outside of Texas up to this point so we’ll see how that disease continues to track over the next few weeks.
Below are some snippets of the Crop Protection Network Map of located Tar Spot showing the progression.
Click the link below for more information on Tar spot and some fungicide options.
Crop Focus Tar Spot
This link is to Corteva’s lineup of Fungicides
Corteva Fungicide Guide
In the coming weeks I’ll provide a Nexta Biologicals update with some of the early side x side pictures, Test Plot progression, etc. If you want to be taken off the list, please just let me know and I can easily adjust the mail out. Thank you!
