News

Corn diseases emerge early, but severity remains uncertain

A technical service manager says the forecast over the next several weeks will help determine how disease pressure impacted corn production.  

Lily Ziehmer covers Nebraska and Colorado FMC, and she says higher temperatures may have limited the impact so far. “I haven’t quite seen the severity that we saw from last year’s disease pressure, but since it came earlier this year it could be building but that will depending on the weather patterns.”

But, she tells Brownfield, “Farmers have had to deal with tar spot showing up early. Then in the last couple of weeks, we’ve had southern rust show up as well. Those are just two detrimental diseases in addition to northern corn leaf blight and gray leaf spot that are consistent year in and year out.”

Ziehmer says short-term forecasts indicate above normal temperatures throughout the region with chances for precipitation.