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Agronomist urges growers to scout for crown rot, harvest crops quickly

A precision agronomist with Advanced Agrilytics says he’s seeing increased crown rot and stalk integrity issues.

Jeremiah Windell covers parts of Indiana and Kentucky.

“I’ve seen instances this year and this month where in certain hybrids we’ve actually lost 50-60 percent of a field and they’re laying flat because of crown rot infection earlier in the season,” he says.

He tells Brownfield farmers should talk to their agronomist and try to target fields with these issues.

“If you have a dryer, get into them as early as possible and if you don’t have a dryer wait as long as you can,” he says. “Those fields really need to be the first to come out because the longer you leave them out there the higher the opportunity is that you’re going to see some type of loss there.”

And the best protection, he says, is fungicide.

“It can help against some Fusarium species, but the residual usually isn’t long enough to help for crown rot specifically,” he says.

Windell says now is the time to scout fields, target problem areas, and harvest the crop as quickly as possible to limit exposure.  

Audio: Jeremiah Windell