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Disease pressure and weather leading to stalk quality concerns

An east central Illinois agronomist says high disease pressure is leading to stalk quality concerns heading into harvest.

Kris Ehler, who’s based in Champaign County, tells Brownfield, “It’s going to be easier for me to tell you what I’ve not found for diseases in cornfields right now than it is what’s actually there, because it is a smorgasbord.  It’s working from the ground up and from the top down at this point.”

He says areas that saw torrential rains throughout the growing season are also vulnerable.

“We’re gonna be short on some nitrogen in the heavier rainfall areas.”  He says, “Those corn plants are really gonna start to cannibalize out of the leaf tissue, stalk tissue, and it’s gonna open things up for some stalk diseases and everything else. So, I think standability is gonna be a big concern.”

Ehler says producers should scout fields ahead of harvest and prioritize ones that show signs of stalk degradation.

Brownfield spoke with Ehler at a recent Illinois Soybean Association Crop Management Field Day in Decatur.

AUDIO: Kris Ehler – Ehler Brothers