Crop Protection, Research and Development
Be Purposeful When Controlling Fungal Diseases
No matter what crops are in your fields, maintaining plant health should be a top priority to maximize yield potential. Healthy green leaf area helps promote photosynthesis that eventually leads to grain fill. When plant health is compromised, so is yield potential. Here are some tips to help maintain the green on your leaves and in your pocket.
Scout with intention
Many plant diseases are soilborne, meaning that they start on the ground and make their way up a plant. Unless you’re getting into the plant canopy to look for diseases, you may miss them until it’s too late for action.
Proper disease identification can be tricky, but it’s a must for choosing the right corrective action. If you have questions, seek the expertise of your trusted agronomic advisor.
Know when to act
Is it time to spray a fungicide? To decide, you can start by reviewing the seed hybrid and varieties you’ve planted. If they’re more susceptible to disease, protecting with a fungicide might be the right choice. Other things to consider are current and forecasted weather conditions, and history of disease pressure in the field. Wind-borne diseases like rust can blow up from the south, so keep an eye on conditions outside of your local area too.
Choose the right product
There are a lot of fungicides on the market, but they don’t all work the same way. A strong fungicide delivers multiple modes of action against the diseases you’re targeting. For example, RustEase™, a new fungicide by WinField United, contains two modes of action for broad-spectrum control of many common crop diseases. The active ingredients, cyproconozale and azoxystrobin, provide upward mobility with improved distribution so they can move within plant tissue to protect new growth. RustEase has both preventive and curative properties and provides solid residual activity.
To get the most from your fungicide application, add MasterLock® adjuvant to the tank mix. MasterLock improves deposition, retention and spreading of fungicides on leaves and helps product penetrate deeper into the canopy, where many fungal diseases start. You’ll get better plant coverage with MasterLock, which translates into better return on the application investment and more leaf area protected against disease.
RustEase is labeled for use in wheat, corn and soybeans. In my area, it’s primarily used in wheat because it protects against leaf, stem and stripe rust, as well as powdery mildew, tan spot and Septoria leaf blight. You’ll get the best return on investment when the flag leaf is protected, so an application from the late boot to flag leaf stage is recommended. Work with your agronomist to scout for and treat fungal diseases to protect plant health and yield.
Scout with intention
Many plant diseases are soilborne, meaning that they start on the ground and make their way up a plant. Unless you’re getting into the plant canopy to look for diseases, you may miss them until it’s too late for action.
Proper disease identification can be tricky, but it’s a must for choosing the right corrective action. If you have questions, seek the expertise of your trusted agronomic advisor.
Know when to act
Is it time to spray a fungicide? To decide, you can start by reviewing the seed hybrid and varieties you’ve planted. If they’re more susceptible to disease, protecting with a fungicide might be the right choice. Other things to consider are current and forecasted weather conditions, and history of disease pressure in the field. Wind-borne diseases like rust can blow up from the south, so keep an eye on conditions outside of your local area too.
Choose the right product
There are a lot of fungicides on the market, but they don’t all work the same way. A strong fungicide delivers multiple modes of action against the diseases you’re targeting. For example, RustEase™, a new fungicide by WinField United, contains two modes of action for broad-spectrum control of many common crop diseases. The active ingredients, cyproconozale and azoxystrobin, provide upward mobility with improved distribution so they can move within plant tissue to protect new growth. RustEase has both preventive and curative properties and provides solid residual activity.
To get the most from your fungicide application, add MasterLock® adjuvant to the tank mix. MasterLock improves deposition, retention and spreading of fungicides on leaves and helps product penetrate deeper into the canopy, where many fungal diseases start. You’ll get better plant coverage with MasterLock, which translates into better return on the application investment and more leaf area protected against disease.
RustEase is labeled for use in wheat, corn and soybeans. In my area, it’s primarily used in wheat because it protects against leaf, stem and stripe rust, as well as powdery mildew, tan spot and Septoria leaf blight. You’ll get the best return on investment when the flag leaf is protected, so an application from the late boot to flag leaf stage is recommended. Work with your agronomist to scout for and treat fungal diseases to protect plant health and yield.
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