▶2026 Mid-Season Wisconsin Field Crop Disease Update

0:05
All right, sounds good.

0:06
So hopefully we can get through this presentation and have some time for some more in depth questions.

0:13
I want to make sure we we leave some time for that, but I do want to just jump in and just say a word about wheat diseases before I really dig in on corn and soybeans there.

0:24
We we’ve been out this week doing some scouting and winter wheat.

0:29
I think, you know, we were a little bit concerned with Fusarium head blight risk.

0:34
We were coming into that kind of anthesis.

0:38
With some marginally high risk in parts of the state.

0:42
But basically what I’ve seen so far is, is pretty, pretty low levels.

0:48
So that’s a that’s good in the winter wheat side of things.

0:52
Stripe rust and leaf rust are can be easily found I think in the in most of the fields I’ve been in.

0:58
I wouldn’t say it’s at high levels and it did come in late enough that I think the risk to yield is going to be pretty low.

1:07
I am a little bit concerned about any spring wheat out there right now because we’re we’re stepping into an thesis and I’ll, I’ll talk about where we are at here in a second with that.

1:16
And then Cephalosporium stripe, this was this was kind of the the big deal in 2025.

1:25
And I’ve gotten quite a few questions this year on, you know, why am I not seeing it.

1:29
And remember, cephalosporium stripe is a soil borne pathogen.

1:35
So it’s going to be in those fields that we saw in 2025.

1:39
It’s going to be there.

1:41
We probably rotated out to different fields that maybe haven’t seen cephalosporium stripe.

1:46
So we do need to be careful when we rotate back to those fields in 20 that were in we in 2025 that we watch for cephalosporium stripe there.

1:57
So you know haven’t seen much this year.

1:59
We haven’t seen any in the variety trials and I haven’t heard any reports in commercial fields.

2:03
So that is a good thing.

2:05
But we do need to kind of watch those fields that we saw it in last year.

2:09
Here’s the current Stripe rust update we did.

2:13
We did see quite a few confirmations in Ontario, Canada and Michigan over over recent days.

2:20
And so you can see those highlighted there.

2:23
This Crop Lookout page on the Crop Protection Network now consolidated all those risk maps.

2:29
So that’s kind of a handy place to go and keep track of these diseases sort of in real time.

2:34
And you can see the various diseases that are covered there in the Crop Lookout.

2:39
Here’s that FHB risk.

2:41
So I’m just comparing at least in South Central Wisconsin, a lot of the anthesis was happening right around that that at last week of May.

2:50
So May 29th is where we had anthesis at Arlington.

2:54
And you can see how much of the state was either low or maybe moderate in terms of head scab risk.

3:00
That’s changed quite a bit in the last month.

3:03
So on the right hand side, you’ve got today’s risk map.

3:05
So this is Fusarium head blight risk throughout the state over here on the on the right hand side, you can see moderate to very high levels on susceptible varieties.

3:15
So again, if there’s anybody with spring wheat out there that’s going through an thesis right now, I think that risk is going to be pretty high for fuserum headlight there.

3:24
And we do have some spring wheat at Arlington that we’re doing some work with.

3:28
And so we’re going to be watching that situation pretty carefully.

3:32
Just a word about, you know, if you are going to spray, there’s very few things to spray for Fusarium head blight, that list is pretty small.

3:40
You can pretty much keep it on one hand here and you can see those ratings.

3:45
We do have this cool tool, fungicide efficacy tool, it’s at the Crop Protection Network.

3:50
That QR code will take you to that tool and you can kind of look and see what’s going on in terms of ratings.

3:58
These ratings are based on basically consensus.

4:02
So we sit around in a room, those of us who are plant pathologists around the country, every spring we talked about our data, compare notes and then assign ratings based on that data.

4:12
So these are national ratings in terms of efficacy for these various products.

4:17
And you’ll see that not only is wheat covered, but also corn, soybeans and several other crops in terms of fungicide efficacy.

4:25
So kind of a nice tool and you can sort it based on the crop and also how the disease of interest.

4:33
All right, so let’s dig in a little bit on corn and soybeans, kind of get a lay of the land.

4:38
Of course, last year, 2025, everybody was talking about southern rust.

4:43
I spent most of the winter around the state talking about southern rust on corn.

4:48
Each year is different.

4:50
This year is is different again.

4:53
We don’t have any southern rust.

4:55
There’s not even southern rust reported down South yet.

4:57
So there’s 0 southern rust confirmations as of today.

5:02
But we do have 5 states already with tar spot confirmations this year.

5:07
So again, every year is a different year.

5:10
We have to keep track of what’s going on and, and what diseases are going to pop up.

5:14
It is still a little bit early to tell what’s going to happen kind of with soybeans here, but I will sort of prognosticate if I can just a little bit here as we as we move forward.

5:26
Now, if you’re here eating lunch, not quite paying attention because you’re sick of hearing about diseases already, here’s AQR code that’ll take you to an article I wrote earlier this week.

5:39
And so much of what I’m going to talk about today is kind of spelled out in that article.

5:44
So if you want to revisit this afterwards, feel free to check that out on the Badger Crop Network website.

5:52
So again, just to recap kind of where we’re at as of today in terms of disease confirmations at least on corn, Southern rust map on the left there nothing so pretty clean throughout the whole country and then quite a few confirmations of tar spot already in Nebraska, northern Kansas.

6:10
We have one county in Missouri, 4 in Iowa and then Darcy’s been pretty active in Indiana already scouting corn there.

6:19
We have been out looking at corn here in Southern Wisconsin, especially fields that we know have had a history of tar spot and had tar spot last year.

6:29
We cannot find it right now.

6:31
Again, that probably has something to do with a combination of the crop growth stage and also just just weather at the moment.

6:41
And that brings me to this.

6:43
So here we are with our tar spot risk on the left hand side.

6:49
Risk is high throughout the whole state.

6:51
So these recent rains have been very conducive for us.

6:55
The temperatures, these mild conditions as well as the kind of wet, dry cycles that we had earlier on that all sort of primes this whole system.

7:04
I think why we can’t find it at the moment is the crop is just a little bit too early yet.

7:09
So the growth stages aren’t quite lining up.

7:12
I do want folks to be out there scouting, paying attention to things as we move through the next couple of weeks, because my guess is based on what we’re seeing down to the, our South and the way the crop is going to be moving, we’re going to be going into some hot weather.

7:25
Again, high humidities, cooler nights.

7:29
Those, those heating and cooling cycles are going to be playing a pretty significant role here as well.

7:35
Combined with the moisture.

7:37
Now the white mold risk is in the right hand side here.

7:41
That risk is, is high.

7:43
But again, the crop isn’t at a susceptible stage at the moment.

7:47
So it’s not, I’m not saying that you know, we should be spraying or anything like that for white mold, but what I want folks to realize is we are coming into the what’s going to be the flowering season here and soybeans pretty soon at a reasonably conducive set of conditions.

8:04
The hot weather next week may help push this down a little bit.

8:08
But you know, as soon as we cool a bit during the day, I think that risk will return.

8:14
So I want folks to be paying attention what’s going on over the next couple of weeks and making those decisions and watching these risk tools so that the QR code there will take you to the CPM crop risk tool where we’ve consolidated all the various disease prediction tools.

8:31
So again, this is all about the the disease triangle.

8:34
And those of you familiar with plant pathology know we talked about this simple model.

8:38
We have to have a pathogen, A susceptible host and a favorable environment.

8:42
And those things all have to come together at the same time for disease.

8:46
So you know, my point here is that, you know, we have the environment, we have the pathogens present, the host isn’t quite in the right growth stages yet for either of these diseases.

8:56
But we’re quickly coming into that those ideal growth stages and we’re going to want to be doing some active scouting out there trying to pay attention to what’s going on.

9:06
So let’s talk a little bit about the cycle.

9:09
Just remind folks we’ll talk a bit about tar spot here first.

9:13
Remember, this is a polycyclic disease, so meaning it has several cycles or many cycles throughout the season.

9:21
This is really important to understand because I think folks get really wound up, You know, when, when when people start lighting up counties to ourselves with Tarspot, everybody gets really, really excited.

9:33
And it’s important to know that to inform your own scouting.

9:39
But I would not get too panicky yet about about pushing the fungicide applications.

9:45
What what you want to do with a disease that has multiple cycles is you want to intervene on those secondary cycles.

9:53
So it’s not really so much about this first onset.

9:57
Yes, you know, it is an important piece because that’s what initiates the disease.

10:02
But the rapid increase happens with the subsequent cycles.

10:05
And So what we want to do is we want to try to balance our fungicide applications with, you know, trying to put them on as late as we can by intervening early in the secondary cycle.

10:15
So the nice thing with corn is, is you can scout the crop, you can look in the lower canopy and kind of watch that disease progression.

10:23
You have some time to make some action, right?

10:26
So the risk, the risk tools are just a tool there to tell you that the environment’s conducive tell you to get out there and scout, use your scouting to kind of see when that disease initiates and then try to intervene during those secondary cycles, especially around that tassel timing.

10:43
Time and time again, the data have shown that the tassel, the single tassel applications are the most important fungicide application time.

10:51
And that is true for most of the diseases, including tar spots.

10:54
So you know, it’s a, it’s kind of a really great spot to really control all diseases of corn, including tar spot there.

11:01
So, so take some time, do some scouting.

11:04
It’s not game over when you see the first spots on the lower canopy, you have some time to make that decision.

11:10
And in fact, from R1 all the way to kind of the R3 that started milk, that’s really where you you, your window of opportunity is for this particular disease.

11:20
So remember that this disease is indeed residue born.

11:25
So corn on corn, no till feels that have had a history.

11:29
Those are going to be higher risk.

11:31
Hybrid plays a really significant role here with susceptible hybrids, you know, allowing those secondary cycles to repeat quite extensively.

11:42
OK.

11:43
Now we’ve been getting asked a lot about agronomic impacts on tar spot, kind of along the lines of seeding rate and nitrogen.

11:52
I showed some of these slides during winter meetings.

11:54
I borrowed these from my colleague Marty Childers over at Michigan State.

11:57
He did a nice set of trials in, in 19 and 20 looking at three different end rates here as well as planting population.

12:06
So you had four different seeding rates there and then two hybrids differing and susceptibility and then just looked at disease progress relative to these these different agronomic practices.

12:18
What’s interesting is that nitrogen had no impact on basically the rate or final increase in Tarspot.

12:27
So that, you know, there’s some rumors out there that nitrogen plays a role, maybe low versus high nitrogen, but there’s been really no evidence and I’ve looked at this a bit and some of our trials as well.

12:41
Again, no, no clear evidence to suggest that nitrogen does have any impact.

12:46
What they did see though is that hybrid does in fact influence final disease severity as you might expect.

12:52
So more susceptible hybrids having higher levels, partially resistant varieties having lower levels and partially resistant varieties.

13:00
Meaning basically what’s happening is they’re slowing down again that secondary cycle, so there’s fewer spores of spores are slower to develop than that slows that whole cycle down.

13:09
So the plant can try to finish and make yield faster than the disease can sort of take over.

13:17
Now when it came to planting population, this was interesting and a bit counterintuitive and I’ll just jump right into the data slides here again, they split out resistant versus susceptible hybrids here and there wasn’t much of AA difference in seeding rates at all within the susceptible hybrid.

13:34
But with a resistant hybrid, what was interesting is that the lower planting populations actually at higher tarspot and this is a bit counterintuitive.

13:44
Some of the diseases you might be more familiar with like grey leaf spot or northern corn leaf flight, you know, higher seeding rates have traditionally led to higher levels of those particular diseases.

13:54
Again, a more dense canopy, higher humidities, that kind of stuff driving disease.

14:00
In this case, it’s a, it’s a lower planting population.

14:04
Now does that mean we should be drop or, or increasing seeding rates?

14:08
I don’t think so, because again, those seeding rates would have to be pretty high.

14:12
We’re kind of in that optimal range where we’re we’re seeing, you know, things not being too of significant concern around that, you know, 34-35,000 I would say.

14:22
So I wouldn’t get too, you know, worked up about this, but you know, lower seeding rates do seem to have higher disease levels.

14:30
I have actually seen this in sweet corn.

14:32
So those of you who manage sweet corn, I do believe that this is one of the reasons why we tend to see higher levels of tarspot in our sweet corn crop here in the States, especially in the later crops.

14:45
You know, mainly, you know, it’s mainly driven by the, the susceptibility of hybrid, but some contribution likely coming from the lower populations maybe in those particular crops as well.

14:58
So just to kind of sum this up, I, you know, it’s really about genetics.

15:03
I think the resistance out there is, is coming along.

15:06
We want to be looking at those partially resistant hybrids trying to maximize our, our control there.

15:14
You don’t need to worry about nitrogen when it comes to tar spot.

15:17
And then seeding rate, you don’t know that lower seeding rates may lead to higher levels, but I wouldn’t get too concerned with adjusting planting populations or anything like that.

15:27
Again, just to show you the value of resistance, again, this is partial resistance on the right hand side, and then you have a susceptible hybrid on the left hand side.

15:38
There you can see that the size of those tar spots is much bigger than the susceptible, whereas the resistant is actually holding that size back.

15:47
So there’s actually fewer spores there.

15:48
They’re slower to develop.

15:50
That’s why that whole secondary cycle process is actually slowed down.

15:55
So again, we’re not dealing with humidity, we’re just dealing with what we call rate reducing resistance, right.

16:01
So it’s actually just slowing the disease progress curve of the whole disease there.

16:07
And you can see how that impacts overall final disease severity here.

16:11
This is looking at multiple trials over over multiple locations where we deployed susceptible versus tolerant or resistant hybrids and we applied a fungicide there.

16:21
Of course you get a big gain in fungicide return on investment on a susceptible hybrid that gain is a little bit less because the hybrid does does a lot of the work there.

16:32
So the hybrids doing maybe 50% of the work in terms of holding that pathogen back.

16:37
And then the you know the fungicide can come in and kind of slow that down a little more.

16:40
But maybe the gains aren’t quite as drastic as you might see in a susceptible.

16:45
Again, just to look at that difference or that effect just a little differently here you can see yield out of those tolerant hybrids.

16:55
You know we getting some nice return there and again, nice returns with the with the fungicide or well-timed fungicide at that tassel or R1.

17:02
And again that’s kind of the sweet spot here.

17:05
So we’re wanting to do our scouting now kind of as we go into that tassel time and then make that decision whether we’re going to spray that crop or not at tassel and hope that the airplanes can get in by the time we get to the R3 growth stage.

17:20
So let’s look at some Wisconsin fungicide data.

17:23
I did get a few data points from last season and you can find more fungicide data on Badger Crop Network.

17:30
All my fungicide research trials from the last 13 years are posted on the website.

17:35
So you can dig in and kind of look at what efficacy data we have there.

17:39
This graph just shows our fungicide rodeo that was at Arlington last season.

17:46
We looked at southern rust tar spot and then took some greening scores.

17:50
So the greening scores are in the Gray tar spots in the orange there.

17:55
And then the southern rust was so low you can’t even see the bars on the on the chart here, we’ve got percentage on that vertical axis.

18:02
So that’s the final severity levels on the ear leaves close to close to the end of the season there and you can see the things inside the red box there.

18:13
They were among the best performing treatments there.

18:16
But mostly where we got some fungicide on, you know we did it.

18:19
We did an OK job relative to the non-treated control with reducing the levels of tar spots.

18:25
Again, timing important, less important really is the product.

18:29
As long as you have a mixed mode of action there, you’re doing a pretty good job.

18:33
Terms of yield, this is typical where if you look at just one stand alone trial, especially for Tarspot, you don’t get many, you know much statistical significance, but you can kind of see some trends here.

18:46
The things on the right hand side there we’re better performing in terms of holding the disease back.

18:52
Those correspondingly gave us some improvements in yield over the non treated, how the non treated was down here at around 280.

19:00
So you know we’re gaining 10 to 15 bushels.

19:03
They’re probably getting some decent return on investment out of those out of those products.

19:09
Been getting asked a little bit about short stature hybrids.

19:13
We looked at that a little bit last season as well.

19:15
So we had a short stature hybrid here in the left hand side and then a conventional hybrid over on the right hand side.

19:23
You can see that the short stature very responsive to a fungicide.

19:27
So what that tells me as a plant pathologist may be a little more susceptible to tarspot and this is an intensity score here in the non treated.

19:36
But we we had 50 to 60% reductions and tarspot on the ear leaves where we where we applied a good fungicide less responsive was the conventional hybrid, but still some responses out of some of these well timed fungicide applications there.

19:52
And then no differences in the hybrids in terms of yield response.

19:56
But we did get a response in terms of the fungicide application.

19:59
Obviously if you apply a 2 pass program, you’re covering that whole window of susceptibility and you get, you probably get some of the best yields there.

20:09
But you got to do some math to see if that that treatment would actually pay for itself.

20:13
Some of these well time single applications probably doing just fine and giving you economic benefits there as well.

20:23
So what’s today’s fungicide return on investment picture look like?

20:28
We have an updated ROI calculator online.

20:32
We updated it not only with data, but also updated the user interface this year.

20:37
This is found on the crop protection network.

20:40
I did run some scenarios looking at some current prices, so have 180 bushel expected yields here I’m looking at 442 corn and I’m setting my disease severity as high, so high in this case would be 5% or higher.

20:56
And then this thing will auto sort of auto calculate based on the pre populated information.

21:03
Here in the left hand side, you can actually change this information.

21:06
So you can change the application cost, the cost of the products, you can change the yield and all this and run these scenarios and this interactive platform will kind of change for you and show you what’s profitable.

21:18
So anything above this, this dashed line here in blue is going to be profitable or expected profitable programs.

21:25
Anything below the line probably not expected to be profitable in these scenarios.

21:32
I’d encourage you in the current economic climate to be honest with yourself.

21:37
Run some honest scenarios.

21:38
You can try some different things here with this calculator and kind of see what’s going to give you the best probabilities of of positive return on investment.

21:47
Again, in my opinion with Tarspot, we don’t need to be super fancy if we get a mixed mode of action.

21:54
Product has at least two modes of action in the jug.

21:57
It doesn’t matter what they are, just has to be two modes of action.

22:01
You know, if you can get a good price for it, that’s going to help with this profitability scenario and then focus on getting that on right at that tassel timing.

22:10
I think you’ll be actually in pretty good shape with managing tar spot.

22:15
Now, may it look a little bit nasty at the end of the season?

22:17
It might because remember it’s not going to be perfect and eventually that fungicide will wear off, but you’re slowing down those secondary cycles and the crop can eventually beat the fungus to the finish.

22:29
Now let’s switch gears here.

22:31
I want to say a little about white mold and and soybeans.

22:35
Most of you probably are pretty familiar in Wisconsin with the white mold cycle here.

22:41
This is different than tar spot now and that this this disease only has one cycle per season.

22:47
So now it is very important that we catch this as early as we can.

22:51
We don’t have the luxury of being able to really wait and scout for the actual disease damage before we apply our intervention.

22:59
This really is one of the cases where we actually have to look into that crystal ball and kind of say, you know, what do we think’s going to happen?

23:07
And I did show you that risk earlier on with white mold from the from the CPN risk tool.

23:14
And you can see that the weather right now is quite conducive, but we don’t have a susceptible crop.

23:19
We have to have that canopy at least 40% close between the rows, so almost touching and we have to have flowers out.

23:29
So in soybeans, most of the infection, like 95% of the infections come from these little spores that come off of these little fungal cups here that are on the surface of the soil.

23:41
Those spores have to be blown up into that, into those flowers.

23:46
So This is why we recommend that that window of fungicide application starts at the beginning of flowering and runs all the way through to the beginning of pot.

23:56
OK?

23:57
And that’s your window there.

23:58
And you want to make that decision based on that risk tool of whether the weather’s conducive during that time.

24:05
Also note, if you, if your field has a history of white molds, you have inoculum there, the sclerotia, these hardened survival structures very hard to get rid of.

24:14
So you have the inoculum there.

24:17
So it’s really again, thinking about that disease triangle.

24:19
When those flowers are there, the crop is susceptible, you’ve got the pathogen there, The missing piece is going to be in the environment, and that’s why you want to watch that risk tool to see if the environment is indeed going to be favorable during that bloom time.

24:32
And then you’re going to want to make a decision for your fungicide application.

24:37
So let’s just talk a little about fungicide efficacy and optimizing applications here.

24:43
We did update the white mold tool as well this year, this year the the ROI calculator tool.

24:51
So you can run some scenarios just like with corn.

24:53
So I did that with some 60 bushel beans here, $10.60 sale.

24:59
I did have a lower disease severity in this case at 15% because I want to make a point here in that in a lot of cases, at least these particular products that we have quite a bit of data on even a low disease scenario, we’re still getting some pretty decent positive return on investment here.

25:18
So you know, any white mold that we can control if we have a history of there is is going to be reasonably beneficial and we we stand a pretty good chance of getting some positive return on investment.

25:32
Again, the Endura at R3 this this continues to be kind of our our go to fungicide product here you can see Delaro complete Mirvis Neo also rate in that mix there.

25:45
You’ll also probably your eyes probably already drifted over here to COBRA.

25:49
So we are seeing improved return on investment with COBRA here.

25:54
We think the change in more recent varieties, we have more PPO tolerance.

25:59
So a decade ago, we would not have recommended this application, but we think that the the varieties are more tolerant now to damage from COBRA at R1.

26:10
And so this is becoming more of a profitable program.

26:13
We’re not seeing the substantial yield reductions that we’ve seen in the past where we have applied Cobra, especially at the R1 at that 6 fluid oz rate at the R1 grow stage there you see pretty good, pretty good return on investment.

26:28
So be aware of that.

26:30
We’re, we are, we do have a trial out this year actually looking at various varieties and their sensitivity to COBRA and a white mold nursery.

26:38
So we’re going to try to get a better handle on kind of what’s going on there and what that recommendation adjustment might be for that particular program.

26:47
Just a word about spraying too late.

26:49
I’ve shown this before.

26:50
This was some data that we took up at Hancock a few years back and one of their commercial fields.

26:56
At that time, we were doing a lot of work again with approach and Endura.

26:59
We actually came in at R5.

27:02
We rated the disease level.

27:03
So we had visible disease actually present at that R5 grow stage and you can see where you put a fungicide on it.

27:11
It didn’t slow anything down and we got no response in terms of yield.

27:16
So my point here is that you again you have kind of a finite window between that R1 to kind of early pod grow stage.

27:24
You can go as late as R4.

27:26
We do have some data to suggest R4 is still OK, but that’s a little bit like playing with fire.

27:32
I would be very careful with pushing that too late because you can quickly get yourself into a situation like you see here where the crop races to R5 and you just completely miss the window.

27:42
And if you try to spray it that at that point in time you will waste quite a bit of money and get no return on that investment there.

27:49
So be careful of the of those late applications.

27:53
Again, we have the fungicide efficacy tool available where you can get good fungicide efficacy data.

27:59
So there are more products that are included in the ROI calculator.

28:04
So we do know what the efficacy ratings are of a lot of products.

28:08
We just don’t have as much data on the return on investment side of those things.

28:13
We are continuing to try to get that data and we will eventually update the ROI tools as that data becomes available.

28:21
Now I just want to shift gears and talk a little about some work that Bryce Himmelberg has been doing in Sean’s Sean Conley’s program looking at drone applications.

28:30
We’ve gotten a lot of questions this year about drones.

28:33
We’ve been doing some drone work with Bryce over the last couple of seasons trying to get a get a better handle on kind of what’s going on be with, you know, drone applications compared to, you know, conventional 15 gallon per acre ground application.

28:47
And can we use a drone to get into, you know, tighter areas of the field, drive

28:52
fungicide down to a more dense canopy, maybe use it as a spot treatment type approach for white mold control?

29:00
So what we’re doing here is comparing our DJI T40 at 2 gallons per acre against our Hagie at 15 gallons per acre.

29:09
And we’re applying Endura.

29:10
So we’ve got a very good fungicide at 8 oz at the R3 or beginning pod grow stage.

29:16
We also took some air velocity readings.

29:20
Dr. Brian Luck helped us with this and I’ll show you a little bit of that data.

29:24
You’ve probably seen this video before just comparing the ground rig with the the the drone application there.

29:34
And, and what I want to draw your attention to is watch the canopy underneath the drone as the as the drone gets close to the camera here, you can see it really moving around.

29:44
And so the idea here is, you know, if we’re carrying less water, can we utilize the downdraft of the of the propellers of the drone to essentially get us get us to push that fungicide down in the canopy where it needs to be.

30:01
And so we did these large strips here you can see a couple of the reps of how these were laid out.

30:07
You can see the NDNDDI ratings here in the in the bottom, the regular light images here you can see all the white mold kind of distributed especially in this non-treated to check here right in, right in the front.

30:20
OK, so quite a bit of damage in here.

30:22
We looked at the data, we get quite a bit of variability in terms of white mold in these larger strips, but Bryce was able to show some nice reductions in white mold with both the drone and the ground application.

30:35
So it wasn’t statistically significant at Arlington in 2023, but very high pressure there.

30:40
You can see nice reductions where the drone and ground rig were were were both used.

30:47
Again, 20 Arlington 2025 here, nice reductions.

30:52
Again, these were actually statistically significant and a little less pressure in this particular location in 25, but but nice reductions and we get pretty decent responses in those high and moderate disease pressure situations out of both the drone and the ground rig where where we use those in those situations that that no disease pressure field.

31:15
Arlington 2024 not a lot of response as you might expect.

31:19
You know, we don’t have a lot of disease.

31:20
So applying A fungicide doesn’t doesn’t give us much response there because we’re not controlling anything.

31:25
But where we do have disease, the drone is actually keeping up with the ground rig.

31:31
So you know, 2 gallons per acre versus 15.

31:34
We again think that that air velocity is actually helping that product get down in the canopy and get us good control.

31:41
Here’s a bit of that data in terms of airspeed and what’s kind of going on above and below the canopy.

31:47
So if you can envision the top of the canopy being kind of the center of the grid here and then we’ve got our velocities across this bottom axis.

31:56
As we as we’re above the canopy, we can see some higher velocities.

32:00
But as we move lower in the canopy, you can see the velocity actually gets quite a bit higher, right.

32:05
So we’re actually moving that air faster and and down into that canopy.

32:11
And so we’re likely getting better redistribution of these fungicides below the canopy, which is probably helping sort of augment the control even at 2 gallons per acre.

32:23
Again, it’s not doing anything better than the 15 gallon per acre application, but it is helping us push that down in there.

32:29
And that is important because the timing now of of fungicide applications, we’d really like to see those fungicides on closer to that beginning pod.

32:38
And that canopy is very dense at that time.

32:40
So you do have to carry more water if you’re, you know, spraying with a conventional rig or you got to use something like a drone to really kind of push things down down into the canopy.

32:49
So just a little, a few notes that Bryce had on using drones for applications.

32:55
They do show some show some potential.

32:57
Make sure you’re calibrating these drones.

33:01
So those of you who are using drones probably know this.

33:03
The one thing we have seen is is that you can really mess up if you don’t get the overlap right.

33:08
So spend some time getting that swath overlap right.

33:12
Not too much overlap, but you need a bit of overlap.

33:14
So you don’t get those those little strips of disease that happened if you’re if you’re not being careful with that overlap.

33:21
So that’s usually where we see folks really get into trouble is they’re just not paying attention when they’re kind of setting up their speed and adjusting the swath with now just to kind of finish things up, I do want to mention a new disease for us.

33:36
I did spend some time this winter talking about this.

33:38
I just want to remind everybody about red crown rot.

33:41
We had one field in Columbia County in 2025 with about a 10 foot diameter section.

33:49
They did present with red crown rot.

33:51
We confirmed it in the field and then spent the fall and all through the winter conducting a series of, of required diagnostics that we have to do in order to publish what’s called a first report.

34:06
And so we did just get that first report accepted.

34:08
So busy trying to get some things online about that.

34:14
I do want to just talk a little bit about what this looks like.

34:16
So, so folks are on the lookout for it and you can see it, it kind of looks like sudden death syndrome.

34:21
And this is what I want folks to kind of pay attention to this year as you start to see feels look like this, don’t just assume it’s sudden death syndrome.

34:29
Make sure you’re getting out of the truck looking at things, especially as you move later into the fall.

34:35
These signs of these little red pimples will show up near the base of the plants down, down around the soil line.

34:40
And this is very diagnostic for red crown rot, hence its name, red down by the soil crown.

34:47
So pay attention to this.

34:49
I do want to just mention a little bit of what’s going on here.

34:52
I borrowed some slides from some colleagues at the Crop Protection Network.

34:56
This is a fungus which is traditionally been considered a southern fungus.

34:59
So it’s Calonectria ilicicola

35:01
It used to be called

35:03
Cylindrocladium parasiticum was widely known as a pathogen of peanut in the Deep South and then a bit problematic on soybeans in the Gulf Coast states, traditionally had been considered a southern disease.

35:19
I does have a wide host range, one of which one of the hosts I would like to mention actually is alfalfa.

35:27
So this is something that they’re a little concerning for us that we do need to pay attention to.

35:31
Should we start to see more red crown rot in the state, we are going to definitely want to watch our rotations and maybe be looking at being careful with alfalfa and that rotation should this become a problem.

35:46
Again, typically considered a southern disease.

35:49
So the Gulf Coast as well as the Carolina region there was the traditional sort of zone for red crown rot, but more recently has been spreading through the Midwest.

36:00
So this is a map as of December of 2025 reporting county level fines here in the US.

36:07
And you can see there’s that Columbia County location in Wisconsin.

36:12
There was also a first report in southwestern Minnesota last season as well.

36:17
So it’s making a move out of Illinois, moving northward.

36:21
And I want folks to make sure they’re paying attention to what’s going on.

36:25
It survives as microsclerosia.

36:27
So these little tiny sclerosia, which are similar to the sclerosia that you see for white mold, but they’re very tiny, usually embedded in soil or on or embedded in debris.

36:38
And that debris then gets moved around on equipment or gets blown around via the wind.

36:43
So that’s primarily how it gets moved around as via those those microsclerosia.

36:47
I neither soil or plant debris.

36:50
So this is one of the things that we need to keep track of his equipment that’s leaving and entering fields, making sure we’re taking some time cleaning things, knowing what’s going on in those fields.

37:00
So we’re sure we’re not moving, you know, debris from 1 field to the next in terms of, you know, conditions, it’s really driven by moist soil conditions, but very warm temperatures.

37:14
So you know, as we have these higher soil temperatures, especially if that happens early in the season, infection can start to happen in the early in the infection process that happens, the more impact on yield that actually has on the plants.

37:28
And so we’re, what you’re trying to do is utilize resistance and then maybe some seed treatments to try to slow that process down.

37:36
Again, trying to delay that infection onset to later in the season.

37:41
Just again, show you some symptomology.

37:43
Again, if I, if I showed you this field here in Wisconsin, you’d probably tell me that sudden death syndrome or maybe even white mold.

37:50
So we need to take some time to get out of the truck and take a look at what’s going on here.

37:54
Here’s an aerial shot of a pretty significant red crown rot from Darcy Talenko’s program.

38:00
So again, likes, likes maybe lower spots in the field, heavier soil types and that sort of stuff.

38:08
In terms of the impact on yield, Carl Bradley’s group has looked at, you know, the components, the yield components of the of the plant and kind of what’s going on and what’s impacted.

38:19
And really the plants, the number of pods, the number of seeds and the total seed weight.

38:24
Like all the yield components are impacted.

38:27
And that makes some sense here because you’re dealing with a root pathogen, it’s compromising that root system and then the plant basically can’t fill out right.

38:36
So it makes some sense that it would probably impact all of those yo components at the same time.

38:42
In terms of fungicide seed treatments, Carl Bradley’s been working on this a bit.

38:46
I know Darcy started to generate some data looking at, you know, really kind of focused on Alevo and Saltro early on.

38:55
And then now there’s some newer data on Victrato looking at, you know, its protection against red crown rot.

39:02
Again, nothing’s perfect here, but we do get some decent reductions in in red crown rot severity where especially Saltro was applied.

39:13
ILEVO, in talking with Carl, ILEVO does give some responses, but it hasn’t been as consistent as Saltro.

39:20
And then I did see some data this year on Victrato and Victrato does look like it.

39:26
It has some efficacy as well.

39:28
So those are really the products that right now that we know of.

39:32
And in terms of resistance and varieties, nobody knows of any good sources of partial resistance, although that is something that my program is starting to look at with some of the isolates that we’ve recovered from Wisconsin.

39:45
So what do I want you all to do right now?

39:47
I want you to be out scouting and paying attention.

39:50
That’s what that’s what I’m asking for.

39:52
Again, if you see those fields that look like SDS, you know, don’t be bashful.

39:57
Please send us sample, send submit samples of the diagnostic clinic.

40:01
So if you see something, send something, you know, call me, text me, call the call the diagnostic clinic, send those samples.

40:10
We want to know where it is.

40:12
And try to track this so we can start to get better recommendations and, and what’s going on if red crown rot is detected, those four bullet points in the bottom of the slide there, that’s the current recommendation.

40:23
So rotations, probably some fungicide, C treatments, managing stress and then keeping equipment clean as it comes out of those infested fields.

40:35
So just to kind of dial things up here as we as we finish up, I do want to just give you a couple other resources.

40:41
I talked a lot about crop protection network risk tool that is a grid based weather tool.

40:46
So it can find Agps coordinate anywhere in the country and give you a estimation of risk for many diseases.

40:53
We also have a risk tool that’s on the Wisco Net website.

40:58
So this QR code will actually take you there.

41:00
So what we’re doing is we’re running in the same models, but we’re utilizing the measured Wisconet weather data coming from the Wisconet weather station.

41:09
So this would be weather measured data at those stations.

41:12
So if that’s the data that you would like to look at, feel free to utilize those models there.

41:18
Again, they’re the same models between the crop protection network and the Wisconet site.

41:22
I do want to draw your attention to our fungicide test summaries.

41:27
So that QR code will take you to our ongoing list of summaries.

41:32
We have 13 years worth of summaries there.

41:34
Be sure to look at multiple years.

41:36
If you’re focused on a particular product, you want to see products that are consistent over time.

41:41
Those are going to be the best products in terms of probably giving you some reliable benefit when applied.

41:49
And then this is kind of hot off the press, just came out last week.

41:54
This is based on our old, we used to have an old PDF table called What’s on your seed.

41:59
We have since updated that quite substantially.

42:03
So the list of products now is is quite long that’s included in this interactive tool.

42:08
But we move this over to the crop protection network.

42:10
The QR code will take you to that.

42:12
This is a sortable tool.

42:14
So again, you can put in, you know, a particular company or a particular ingredient, you’ll get the, the various products and, and crop sites that that particular C treatment is actually, you know, included on.

42:28
So kind of a nice way to understand better, you know, what is actually on your seed, what is coming in that particular product that is that has been applied to either soybeans or corn or whatever crop you’re dealing with.

42:43
So with that, I will finish up.

42:44
Hopefully we have some time for a few questions.

42:48
There’s my e-mail contact information, of course, the Badger Crop Network site, and then that QR code there will actually take you to my virtual business card.

42:59
So you’ll have my contact information.

43:01
Again, very important.

43:02
If you run across Red Crown Rot, we would love to know.

43:07
Don’t hesitate to reach out.

43:09
So with that, I’m going to pause there and then I guess we can take some questions.

43:14
Jerry.

43:16
Yeah, thank you, Damon.

43:17
Lots of great information and there are a number of your links that you’ve referenced in the chat.

43:23
So we encourage participants and those on today to go check those resources out.

43:29
There’s a lot of good information there.

43:31
We did get a couple of questions.

43:34
Damon, can you with Tarspot, is there a specific temperature range that that is more aggressive than than other ranges or what when when should we be looking out for that?

43:47
I know you mentioned moderate temperatures, but the questions more around what’s that range?

43:51
Yeah, it’s think of it similar to white mold that likes the cooler kind of low 70s down in the upper 60s.

44:00
When we see daytime temps and I’m trying to, we was it 20, I think it was 21/20/21, I believe it was where we had very warm hot conditions and like the end of July or early August that does slow it down, right.

44:17
So when you get these 90° daytime temps, it will slow down that secondary increase quite substantially.

44:23
But it turns out it is not lethal.

44:26
So when we get cooler daytime temps returning and what happens actually is it’s it’s really, I think related to actually the nighttime.

44:34
So when the nighttime temps dip back down into the 60s, that’s where a lot of the action is happening.

44:40
The what’s going on there was when the daytime temps and next week looks like it’s going to be one of these, at least for us here in southern Wisconsin, you know, we’re going to be very warm up in the upper 90s and we’re not going to cool at night, right?

44:52
So I’m not going to be surprised if I start to see a little bit of that tar spot risk start to tail off a little bit.

44:57
But the minute we we get cooler again, it’s going to start to ramp back up.

45:01
So I think it’s more related to what’s happening night time than really what’s going on during the daytime.

45:08
It can sort of handle that higher daytime time.

45:11
But it is true, once we get up above 90° during the day, it is going to slow, slow that down a bit.

45:19
OK.

45:20
A couple more have popped up in the chat.

45:21
1 is when are you joining TikTok?

45:24
That’s an interesting question.

45:25
But yeah, well, I have to get my game face on and get my T-shirts out.

45:30
Yeah.

45:32
And then there is another one there.

45:34
Do you think fungicide apps are more effective on short corn and the app can get down into the canopy better maybe?

45:42
Yeah.

45:43
So it, it could be that it’s more effective.

45:48
I think.

45:49
I think what I, I think the beauty of short corn really is that gives us flexibility as, as agronomist, right, So we can better time.

45:59
I think, you know, I’ll just come at that question a little different in that, yes, I do think it’s going to be more effective because we can then time the applications better and have maybe some better infield control of that application.

46:12
You know, with the with the conventional hybrids, we’re sorted at the mercy of the airplanes and when they can get there and maybe maybe the timing was good, maybe the timing wasn’t good.

46:23
You know what with short corn, we can kind of maybe take that back into control a bit.

46:27
We can you use some of our high clearance sprayers again and they in, in these fields and, and and get that product on it just the right time.

46:36
As far as the coverage, yeah, I mean, now you’re taking a crop, you’ve you’ve shrunk it down.

46:41
You still have quite a bit of leaf area there.

46:43
So you still, you can’t be like sloppy about your applications.

46:47
I would encourage folks to still take time with you know, thinking about gallon acreage and speed and and all that kind of stuff.

46:55
But you know, we are going to get a little better deeper canopy penetration of that particular product because you do have a, a canopy that’s a little shorter.

47:04
The leaves though if if anybody’s walked, you know short corn, the leaves are quite a bit of wider.

47:10
So you have a lot more leaf you know sort of area on that shorter plant or at least that leaf to stem ratio.

47:18
I guess we’re not talking about alfalfa, but it is it is higher I would say than in a conventional hybrid.

47:24
So you do have to sort of be aware of that, that, you know, you’re still going to have some things that you have to kind of work around from an application standpoint.

47:32
But I think the biggest thing is that added flexibility, we can really get the timings better because where I see fungicides fail, it’s usually because we waited too long or we couldn’t get in at the right time.

47:43
Yeah, right.

47:46
And then before we wrap up here, there is one more question regarding white mold, introducing a small grain into that rotation with that intervention.

47:56
Can you briefly explain how that works?

48:00
Yeah, so, so there’s some older data and and Craig Growl actually, my predecessor had actually got some of this data working with some farmers down in the Driftless, you know, rotating with small grains.

48:14
Small grains actually trick the sclerosia to Germany and and grass crops are a non host for for white mole.

48:22
So it’s nice.

48:22
It almost acts like a trap crop.

48:24
So you’re tricking the fungus and you can eventually deplete the the we call it the inoculum potential, right.

48:31
So you, you take that a knock, that viable inoculum load and you’re basically depleting it over time.

48:37
The caveat though, is when you, when you go into that system, you want to, you want to adopt A no till approach there because you don’t want to keep stirring the soil.

48:45
When you do that, you just keep moving sclerosia up and down in the soil profile and they can, they can last a long time.

48:52
When you send them down deep where there’s not a lot of microbes, they’ll, they’ll hang out just fine.

48:57
And then when you till that again and bring it back up to the top.

49:00
So you really do need to adopt A no till there.

49:03
One thing we’ve been doing again along the small green side of things is looking at rye and working with Rodrigo Worley.

49:10
And this year we’re actually trying our we we planted green and then terminated rye and then we also layered A biological.

49:20
So contents, which is a which has been shown a pretty effective products.

49:25
We actually have the planted green and planted green with contents and then contents by itself.

49:33
And then we have a just a conventional strip and and and then some non treated out there.

49:38
So we’re going to see what that looks like, but we’ve got, we got some data that we we got back when we were doing a lot of roller crimping rye stuff.

49:48
And, and what’s going on there in addition to, you know, just sort of depleting the, the sclerosia that rye, the heavy matter rye will actually inhibit the formation of the mushroom.

50:01
So even, you know, even though you have soybeans, they’re having some physical barrier there for those spores in addition to some thick matte that can actually reduce the number of mushrooms that actually form and the number of spores that actually make it up into the canopy.

50:19
So we’ll see how those strips actually pan out later this season.

50:24
Great.

50:26
Don’t see any more questions.

50:27
I’ll do a little wrap up here and if we get a few we can continue to answer as we got some more time.

50:33
Again, thanks Damon for all that information and all the links and resources you’ve provided.