Tar Spot is an increasing disease across the Midwest that impacts corn yield. BASF Technical Service Representative Vince Davis says it showed up in 2015. “Tar spot first showed up in northern Illinois and Indiana in 2017. The first year that it was highly yield-impacting was 2018 and then again in 2021. It was very yield-damaging, 40–50-bushel losses were very common.” Davis says he saw a jump in the disease’s spread this past year. “This last year was particularly bad across a lot of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. It’s a disease that’s a lot more devastating in conjunction with other foliar corn disease that we routinely deal with like grey leaf spot. It can be managed by monitoring total crop health and managing total foliar corn diseases.”
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