The Michigan Ag Today Sugarbeet Planting Report is made possible by BASF and Provysol fungicide. Be proactive and control cercospora leaf spot in your beets.
The 2021 Michigan sugarbeet crop was a monster crop. Back in November, Michigan Sugar estimated the crop would yield 36 tons per acre. The campaign is still going strong. Trevor Kraus, agronomist with BASF, says it was because of a near-perfect growing season
“By and large, we had really good conditions for planting, [but] the early part of the season was on the dry side,” he says. “Once we got into July through August, we ended up getting pretty consistent rains which drove a lot of diseases.”
When that rain fell, the beets became susceptible to cercospora leaf spot.
“Overall when you look at what happened with the sugarbeet crop in Michigan, cercospora levels were down—growers did an outstanding job managing this disease,” says Kraus.
There are ways to set plants up for success early in the season. Kraus says look for resistant varieties to plant.
“There are CR+ beets coming down the line and are becoming more available that have resistance to cercospora,” he says.
Variety selection coupled with good agronomic practices should also help with disease management.
“Healthy plants have better natural defenses to anything, so the better the agronomy is, the better the chances of our crop being able to have better tolerance to various pathogens that are trying to attack it,” says Kraus. “We can’t totally rely on the genetics—they still require the timely use of fungicides, but all of these things put together help us deal with cercospora.”
