It has not been a perfect year for the Michigan corn and soybean crops, from stressful emergence to delayed pollination, to drought here in August. In the new Channel Seed growing season update, John Craft, Technical Agronomist in southern Michigan, wants growers to continue to scout. Tar spot is one of their issues.
“It’s widespread, it’s out there,” he said. “I believe 18 counties as of today in the corn growing region of Michigan have tar spot confirmed, but the severity I would say is still in that low threshold now. It’s not probably one that I would pull fungicide applications yet. We’re still in that very critical R1 to R2 growth stage, and there is still a lot of yield to protect in those areas unaffected by the drought.”
Craft says Japanese beetles in soybeans have been bad this year. Spider mites have been a problem in drought-stressed areas.
And where is drought a problem in western Michigan?
“The western coastline starting down towards the southern edge of Michigan, but as you get up into like the Grand Rapids area, it does get quite a bit more severe, where the last rain was the greater part of 14 to 21 days ago. So there is leaf rolling over there and soybeans flipping over just to preserve as much water as they can. As we get into that Saginaw Valley area, kind of on that diagonal again, it’s probably a little bit more isolated pockets, but those fields where it has drought conditions are pretty severe.”
He says focus on fields with the best yield potential when considering where to make management moves.
“You need to get the baselines, the ones that are stressed to finish out as best as they can, but if you’re looking at high input, high management decisions I would focus those on the ones that have the best yield potential left, Craft told MAT. “So a good way to look for that is just go out and do pod counts on your soybeans and on a variation of the field.”
In corn he says tear back the husk to look for tip back, and ear molds could become a concern. More detail on that is in the full MAT and Channel Seed growing season update:
