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Iowa corn farmer says fungicide helped offset southern rust pressure

A southwest Iowa farmer says he’s cautiously optimistic about his corn crop despite some disease pressure that developed throughout the growing season.

Lee Brooke tells Brownfield southern rust was prevalent heading into fall.

“We had a lot of southern rust move in this summer like a lot of the area and Midwest did,” he said. “But where we sprayed it sure helped a lot.”

He says some fields were sprayed twice.

“That stuff looks greener and we haven’t got into that yet,” Brooke said. “But you can definitely tell a difference where the spray didn’t get on and there’s definitely some yield loss where we didn’t spray fungicide.”

Brooke says he’s harvested nearly 100 acres of corn and expects to have an average crop.