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Leave a check strip in fungicide applications
A plant pathologist is encouraging farmers to leave a check strip in fields receiving fungicide applications.
Marty Chilvers is with Michigan State University.
“If you don’t leave a check strip, you have no idea what that fungicide did for you,” he explains. “It doesn’t need to be the whole length of the field. It’s just got to be long enough that you can run the combine with the yield monitor and get a sense of how that worked out for you.”
Entomologist Chris Difonzo says the check strip can also be used to scout for pests like western bean cutworm which is increasing in pressure.
“Western Bean is rarely a yield limiting thing,” she says. “It feeds on that little moist tip, but it opens that ear up to pathogens and enhances the infection.”
Chilvers says having comparable information can help farmers check the effectiveness of products which is especially important when margins are tight and the risk of disease is high.
Difonzo recommends harvesting fields with a lot of ear injury first and getting the crop dried fast to avoid quality or mycotoxin issues.
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