By Matt Reese and Dave Russell
Although the challenges are difficult to overcome at this time, late-season monitoring of diseases, insects and weeds can help assess the increasing challenges of 2024 and drive further planning.
Ohio State University Extension staff scouted fields in August and are encouraging Ohio farmers to do the same.
“I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at the corn fields. Overall, I saw low disease and insect pressure. I did see tar spot, but it was mostly confined to the edges of the lower canopy of the field. And overall, the frequency and severity of tar spot was very low. As for insect pressure, I did see some signs of aphids earlier in the season, but it looks like they’ve been largely kept in check by some beneficial insects feeding on them,” said Stephanie Karhoff, Agricultural Systems Field Specialist, CCA, with OSU Extension of Fields in Putnam County. “The fields I was in today were sprayed with a fungicide at bud break. I know from talking to growers that it depends on how that pays off this year, just considering the price of corn. Are they seeing enough disease pressure to justify the application and make it worthwhile this year? It seems like we’re much further along this year. Last year we were in the bubble stage here in northwest Ohio with yield controls. This year we’re in the milk stage, which to me is a big advantage this season over last year’s crop. We’re making good progress with the crop.”
The rains in early August had a very positive effect on the harvest in the region.
“I think that’s going to have a really huge impact on our soybeans. It seems like the soybeans there struggled a little bit mid-season, with yellowing from a variety of reasons, and I think these rains in August will hopefully really help those beans recover and reach the yield potential that’s there. Those diseases that we see later on, like sudden death syndrome, and any insect pressure like bean leaf beetle feeding or stink bugs feeding on the pods, are all good things to look out for this time of year,” she said. “In corn, we’re still looking out for those foliar diseases. We’re getting to the point in most of our fields where we’re past R3 and no longer need a fungicide application, but we still need to know what’s out there so that when we go back to planting corn in that field, we’re informed and know what kind of resistance package we need, and we also need to look out for Gibberella ear rot.”
Ken Ford, an OSU Extension lecturer, checked corn and soybean fields in Fayette County and found that there were few disease problems and post-drought yields were better than expected.
“Miraculously, we’ve been pretty surprised at how good some of the crops are looking in Fayette County. We were very fortunate to be able to plant a lot of crops in April, and I think that early planting date is paying off. Corn and soybeans have looked really good all along, but we just haven’t had that one big rain to keep everything going, but surprisingly they’re holding up and doing well,” Ford said. “Even in our really driest times, we’ve been lucky to have 3-6 millimeter rains in between. They’re rare, but I think they’ve helped keep it going. Of course, a lot can happen between now and harvest. It could easily be 80-bushel beans, but if it doesn’t rain much more, it could be 60-bushel beans pretty quickly. We haven’t had a really consistent rain pattern, but they’ve held up.”
Towards the end of the season, weed problems began to arise in some fields.
“We’re seeing some weed growth late in the season. I think some of our residues aren’t going to hold up as well as we thought they would. We’ve found waterhemp in some fields. It’s starting to creep in and weed pressure could be a challenge,” Ford said. “We’re seeing some weed pressure across the county in general. I just feel like we just didn’t have the residues from those that may have been post-treated or we just didn’t have enough water to activate them properly.”
Grant Davis of OSU Extension in Champaign County also checked fields in his area and found that fields look presentable, with an overall yield of 210 bushels per acre, with yields ranging from 197 to 226 in a field planted in late May.
“Right now we’re in a pretty good place moisture-wise, but if we got another rain in two weeks, that would be the cherry on top and probably enough to cross the finish line here and finish really strong. There’s drought stress in some parts of the county, so harvest will probably come early. A lot of beans were planted pretty early, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see combines rolling in some areas in mid-September,” Davis said. “Last week we drone-applied a fungicide on corn. There were some foliar diseases, particularly northern corn leaf blight. There were also some reports of tar spot in the county. With the current economic situation, the price of grain continues to drop, so it’s a little less attractive to do those applications.”
