A technical agronomist says while tar spot showed up across much of the Corn Belt this year, its impact wasn’t as bad as it could have been in his area.
Jeremy Miner covers southeast Iowa for Channel. “We weren’t dealing with any issues where tar spot that actually killed plants early and really take off the top end yield off,” he says. “Most came in late enough that I think we were able to avoid a lot of those yield-loss situations there.”
He tells Brownfield the disease was detected in every county in his coverage area, but its level of severity differed. “A lot of corn on corn acres,” he says. “And you can really tell where guys used or did not use a fungicide this year. And if they did not use it and they’ve had tar spot in the past, that diseases really come in quite heavily.”
According to the latest Crop Progress and Condition report, about 40% of the state’s corn crop has been harvested.
