Tar spot has been the big corn disease we’ve discussed for the past several years. There was some this year, but it didn’t win the award for biggest yield robber in 2025.
“I have never seen the level of southern rust pressure across the Corn Belt like we did in 2025,” says Kim Tutor, technical marketing manager for plant health at BASF. “It caught people off guard. Generally speaking, it doesn’t come across the Corn Belt until much later because it blows in from the Gulf of Mexico, and sometimes it comes in super late in the season.
“That disease is particularly troublesome because it has a really fast reproductive cycle. Its latent period is only seven to ten days. So, every week, generally speaking, it’s putting off new spores. And so, when it comes in, it hits hard.”
Tutor says 2025 wasn’t just a year of southern rust and tar spot either.
“There was gray leaf spot too. Some fields had northern corn leaf blight. So, it was truly a complex of diseases. That corn seed was fighting from the time it went in the ground.”
With all those challenges, farmers who chose to cut fungicide from the budget this year likely struggled. Tutor says we can all be a little short sighted, including her, when it comes to fungicide decisions. You can get caught looking at just the most recent year.
“When you look at a performance driven fungicide like Veltyma, and you look at its performance year over year over year, it continues to deliver that yield benefit, that stress mitigation benefit, and it’s that consistency that pays for itself.”
She shared with us a story of an Iowa grower who decided to apply fungicide to a smaller number of acres. His conclusion at the end of the season?
“He said, ‘If you ever let me not treat all my corn acres again, please hit me upside the head with a two by four.’ And I think that sums it up really well!”
Tutor encourages farmers to have conversations about fungicide now. She even suggests taking advantage of BASF’s 0% financing and booking the application if you’re thinking about applying Veltyma aerially.
Hear more from Tutor in the full interview below.
