If you haven't entered the Crop Watch 2015 yield guess contest and you live in Michigan, Ohio or Indiana, do it now.
Crop Watch 8/20: You can see the moisture that set the stage for corn disease
Email a guess of dry yield per acre for the Crop Watch '15 field by 11:59 p.m. EDT, Sept. 15, to tbechman@farmprogress.com. Include your name, cell phone, physical address, and acres of each crop raised. The top three winners in each state are eligible for Seed Consultant seed corn for 2016: eight bags free for first, six for second and four for third. It might be your easiest way to cut cost for next year!
Winners from 2014 are not eligible. One entry per immediate family will be accepted.
Meanwhile, Dave Nanda, a plant breeder and consultant for Seed Consultants, Inc., says that foliar diseases are an issue in both hybrids from two different companies in the Crop Watch 2015 field. The field was sprayed with fungicide before pollination was complete.
Several leaves below the ear are beginning to show more brown that green. So did the fungicide help?
Nanda says it's too early to say. There are lesions even on top leaves below the tassel, but those lesions are not nearly as numerous. They have also not changed much as to number of lesions or size of lesions in the past 10 days.
If there is an effect, it will likely be in grain fill, and perhaps on test weight, although the two are two different things. The net result could be lighter kernels than if the disease was not present, he says.
Crop Watch 8/17: Will field yield estimates be too high or too low this year?
What happens over the next two to four weeks as far as plant health, and the ability of the plant to hang on through grain fill, may answer the questions. Nanda does expect stalk rot to be more of a threat because the stalks are stressed by disease.
Putting that aside, he can still visualize very good yields coming from this year's field.