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You've heard many times that "timing is everything." You may want to make those your watchwords for spraying if and when Asian Soybean Rust heads your way. And according to Bob Gordon of Dow AgroSciences, who has worked with fungicides for 30 years, you really do want to spray when it heads your way, not after it has arrived. "Research we did in late-December indicates 50% of the growers are still going to wait until they see damage to spray," he says. "They need to understand that that is too late. It's great to scout crops, but that is not your first line of defense, it is your last." Gordon says you can't afford to wait until you see actual crop damage to start spraying. "That's too late," he told a group of chemical dealers and applicators in Ames, Iowa, this week. He says Iowa growers and dealers should watch what is happening in Louisiana and Arkansas, and plan to spray soybeans at the RI growth stage when they see the disease in those Southern states.
"Use the internet to track it," he adds. Ricardo Balardin, a plant pathologist with a public university in Brazil who got his Ph.D in the U.S., told the same group, "The best moment to spray is before you have noticed the rust." Balardin has worked with rust in many crops since 1982, but he says "after soybean rust, we are in a new era." He says application mistakes have contributed to the $3 billion in losses suffered by South American farmers. He says Brazilian farmers have had the best luck spraying at night. "We get better control with night spraying than with daytime spraying."(It was at that point the veteran applicator this writer was seated next to muttered: "Great, we'll spray glyphosate all day and fungicide all night!") Balardin suggests spraying between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. "The dew makes it easier to distribute the fungicide on the leaf," he says. "And at night there is more time for the plant to absorb the fungicide. "But," he added, "watch out for atmospheric inversions and unexpected rain." |
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