While out standing in a field of corn this time of year you may be thinking "did my corn die prematurely or is this just normal dry down?".
Here are some answers from our area Pioneer Agronomist Blair Freeman.
There’s lots on Northern Leaf Blight (NLB) out there depending where you are… also lots of anthracnose dieback and stalk rot. Remember that once these diseases set it, they open the door for other saprophytic fungi to invade… eventually you end up with an ugly looking brown plant and it can be hard to tell what the initial disease was and what actually took out the plant (also remember that it could be frost related, or it could just be mature and shutting down). You can have combinations of NLB and anthracnose that take out a field of corn. When leaves are brown you can usually hold them up to the sunlight to see cigar shaped lesions if they were there.
Grab cobs and twist them to see if plants died early. Early death usually leaves kernels shrunken (low test weight), and the cob very loose and twistable. NLB typically invades the entire canopy. Anthracnose dieback can happen on sporadic plants as you walk down the row, or it can just affect everything depending on severity.
Here are some answers from our area Pioneer Agronomist Blair Freeman.
There’s lots on Northern Leaf Blight (NLB) out there depending where you are… also lots of anthracnose dieback and stalk rot. Remember that once these diseases set it, they open the door for other saprophytic fungi to invade… eventually you end up with an ugly looking brown plant and it can be hard to tell what the initial disease was and what actually took out the plant (also remember that it could be frost related, or it could just be mature and shutting down). You can have combinations of NLB and anthracnose that take out a field of corn. When leaves are brown you can usually hold them up to the sunlight to see cigar shaped lesions if they were there.
Grab cobs and twist them to see if plants died early. Early death usually leaves kernels shrunken (low test weight), and the cob very loose and twistable. NLB typically invades the entire canopy. Anthracnose dieback can happen on sporadic plants as you walk down the row, or it can just affect everything depending on severity.
There are major pockets of NLB or Anthracnose or both in many of the areas I have been lately. Some fields of corn died early.
No comments:
Post a Comment