Crops Facing Disease Issues as Harvest Approaches
With Indiana crops nearing harvest, there are some disease issues that are impacting the quality and yield of both corn and soybeans. As the corn crop heads toward black layer, some late season diseases are popping up due to the excessive rain we saw in August. T.C. Hoffman, with DuPont Pioneer, urges growers to check their fields, “We are starting to see some anthracnose stalk rot, and that means we have some concern about the long term standability of this corn. I would definitely recommend that growers get out in the field and start doing some scouting to find out if they might need to get started on this field earlier than they normally would.”
This is just one of the late season problems facing some Indiana corn fields. Hoffman said, especially in areas that have seen heavy rains, molds are showing up that will hurt grain quality, “If you see some ear molds, they are not going to get better. The longer it stays out there, the more chance it will have to drag yields down.”
For most of the growing season, disease pressure was light in soybeans but, here at the end, we are seeing some problems, “We are seeing some SDS and some white mold show up in some soybean fields. This is especially true in some of the darker soils with higher plant populations.” Hoffman added, with the amount of rain some areas got in late August, this created a breeding ground for white mold.
Listen to the complete report with T.C. Hoffman under the crops tab.