Fungicides Might Not Increase Corn yields Unless Disease Develops

Unless a corn crop is in danger of developing fungal diseases, a Purdue University study shows that farmers would be good to skip fungicide treatments that promise increased yields.

Kiersten Wise, an assistant professor of botany and plant pathology, said fungicides utilized in fields where conditions were optimal for fungal diseases improved yields and obtained themselves. In fields where fungal diseases are unlikely to develop, however, applying a fungicide is probably going a waste of cash.

"About 5 years ago, we tend to never used fungicides in hybrid corn. Then there was this push to use fungicides for yield enhancement, even while not disease issues," said Wise, who collaborated on findings that were printed as an yankee Phytopathological Society feature article within the journal Phytopathology. "We found that you just would need to get a considerable yield increase for a fungicide treatment to acquire itself. We tend to did not see that yield increase on the same basis, and it wasn't predictable."

Wise and her collaborators reviewed printed knowledge from foliar fungicide tests in fourteen states, further as knowledge from their own analysis plots, to see that circumstances led to yield will increase when fungicides were used. They found that a mixture of many factors that may contribute to fungal disease — no-till fields, fungus-susceptible hybrids, continuous corn, wet field conditions, etc. — required to be gift for yields to extend with fungicide applications.

"In our trials, even where conditions were optimal for disease, if disease did not develop, we tend to did not see a yield increase," Wise said.

Growers ought to weigh value} of the treatments — sometimes $32-$34 per acre — against the attainable edges and therefore the price of corn. At low corn costs, it takes a bigger yield increase to recoup the value of a fungicide application.

Wise said the final rule was that growers required to examine a yield increase of regarding six bushels per acre to recover their investment.

Wise collaborated with researchers from Iowa State University, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, Mississippi State University, University of Maryland, University of Kentucky, University of Wisconsin, and therefore the Ohio Agricultural analysis and Development Center.

Wise said she would continue analysis to see a lot of specific pointers for when fungicide applications increase profits. The Indiana Corn selling Council funded the work.

Source : farmindustrynews.com