Genetics and fungicides are the two pillars of disease defence when it comes to yield robbers like tar spot. But weather and technology also play a key role in helping growers defend their crops against the foliar disease.
On this episode of the RealAgriculture Corn School, Ontario Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Agribusiness pathologist Albert Tenuta looks at the importance of linking knowledge of disease pathogens in the field with weather information to create predictive models to help growers make management decisions, including the timing and most cost effective use of fungicides.
"Those prediction models can help us. They can utilize the weather and tell us if we're going from the situation with no or very little tar spot to increasing our risk — that helps us with the timing side of things," says Tenuta. He notes that models become more effective when information on the movement of the disease pathogen and spores is tied into the model.
That's were technology like Spornado, an early alert system for crop disease, can play a key role in helping manage tar spot and other diseases. It's a spore trapping mechanism that's mounted in the corn field where it continuously sucks in air and traps spores. "Those can be analyzed through DNA," notes Tenuta. "You can look for tar spot, northern corn leaf blight, fusarium head blight, white mould, a whole bunch of other diseases."
Tenuta says researchers can then link the level of pathogen in the field to the weather forecast to help growers determine the best strategy to manage the disease using a tool like the Tarspotter app.
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