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Scouting for tar spot late season

An extension agronomist says farmers should continue scouting for tar spot late in the growing season.

Meghan Anderson is with Iowa State University. “It’s unlikely to affect yield if it really starts to blow up here late in the growing season, but we are going to have it for future years. So, keeping that scouting up and paying attention to that at this point is going to be really important.”

She tells Brownfield farmers should keep note of which fields are infected. “Maybe even thinking about how they are going to be harvesting those fields if they are able to, so that they are not spreading that residue – that is going to contain that tar spot – to other fields that are currently uninfected.”

Anderson says later this fall farmers will need to evaluate what worked and what didn’t as they think about hybrid choices for future years.