CORN Newsletter: 2009-06, March 16, 2009

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C.O.R.N Newsletter 2009-06
March 16, 2009 - March 31, 2009

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Supplemental Label for Headline® Fungicide for “Plant Health”: Does this work in Ohio?
by Anne Dorrance, Dennis Mills, Pierce Paul, Peter Thomison, Jim Beuerlein


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Recently, a supplemental label for Headline® fungicide was added for the plant health benefits of the fungicide. The team at the University of Kentucky has done a very nice job listing these additional claims and review of this label (http://www.ca.uky.edu/ukrec/newsltrs/News09%20-1.pdf). Briefly the supplemental label claims the following: “The plant health benefits may include improved host plant tolerance to yield-robbing environmental stresses, such as drought, heat, cold temperatures, and ozone damage”. There are numerous additional claims on the label as well.

Across the Midwest and in Ohio specifically, in replicated trials (both on-farm and in research plots) we have not been able to show large increases in yield due to the control of disease ("not" added for correction March 18, hdw). For soybeans brown spot and frogeye leaf spot severity was reduced when Headline® and other strobilurin type compounds were used on HIGHLY susceptible soybean varieties. Only 3 out of 31 on-farm trials from 2004 to 2008 were able to recoup the costs of the fungicide, let alone see any profit. In all three cases, foliar diseases had reached the mid to upper canopy, the key leaves for yield in soybeans.

The results are very similar for corn and wheat. Yield responses tend to be higher and fungicide applications more likely to be profitable when susceptible hybrids or varieties are planted and foliar disease pressure is high. Summaries of more that 200 replicated corn foliar fungicide trials (from more than 13 different states, including more than 25 observations from Ohio) conducted by university-based researchers in 2007 and 2008 showed that the yield differences between fungicide treated plots and untreated checks vary from one trial to another, with an average yield response across all trials of 3.3 bu/A in 2007 and 3.6 bu/A in 2008. In 2007, the yield difference was 6 bu/A when gray leaf spot susceptible hybrids were planted compared to 3 bu/A when resistant hybrids were planted. Similarly, in 2008 the average yield increase over the untreated check was 7.5 bu/A when disease severity was greater than 5% compared to 1.2 bu/A when severity was less than 5%.

As our colleagues in Kentucky have eloquently stated “Thus, at this time, we do not feel that there is a scientifically defensible basis for assertions of improved plant health/stress tolerance in the absence of the diseases the fungicide was originally developed to control”. We concur with our colleagues. Let’s use these tools when they will provide the greatest benefit and keep them useful for the long term – when the timing is such that they impact the fungi that negatively impact our crops.

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C.O.R.N. is a summary of crop observations, related information, and appropriate recommendations for Ohio Crop Producers and Industry. C.O.R.N. is produced by the Ohio State University Extension Agronomy Team, State Specialists at The Ohio State University and Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. C.O.R.N. Questions are directed to State Specialists, Extension Associates, and Agents associated with Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center at The Ohio State University.

Information presented above and where trade names are used, they are supplied with the understanding that no discrimination is intended and no endorsement by Ohio State University Extension is implied. Although every attempt is made to produce information that is complete, timely, and accurate, the pesticide user bears responsibility of consulting the pesticide label and adhering to those directions.

All educational programs conducted by Ohio State University Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Keith L. Smith, Director, Ohio State University Extension.

TDD # 1 (800) 589-8292 (Ohio only) or (614) 292-1868


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