(Lakefield, Mn.)– It isn’t too bad yet, but some fungal and bacterial diseases are starting to appear in some of the corn crop in the area. Jim Nesseth is with Extended Ag Services in Lakefield…
“There are concerns about tar spot and you know, we’ve got a little bit of that showing up and a little bit of northern corn leaf blight. Most of what we’ve seen lately is bacterial blight in a lot of our cornfields and a fungicide treatment doesn’t work there, so. The question everybody’s asking is should I spray or not. You know it’s $35, $40 an acre to do that with an airplane or a drone and it’s expensive, and so, but last year it did work out real well. I think fungicide treatments as a whole paid off and so that’s kind of what we’re looking at. And so it’s one of those deals where I think you just kind of pick the high priority fields first, you know, corn-on-corn, good looking corn that’s got good yield potential. I think you want to look at that pretty hard. Then I think you just have to go out in those fields and just kind of scout to see what that pressure is that you have.”
Nesseth adds corn and beans could use a good drink of water right now…
“The lighter ground is showing some water stress, starting to curl and onion leaf just a little bit. Yeah, we’re concerned about that, I think we could use some more rain. Fortunately we’re in pretty good shape and this cooler weather has really helped with the pollination period. But yeah, we’d welcome a rain right now.”
Outside of maybe a chance for a shower tonight (Thurs.), forecasters say conditions for the most part will remain dry.
