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Should hail damaged crops be sprayed with a fungicide?
August 3, 2009
It is important to keep in mind that a fungicide application cannot recover lost yield potential due to hail damage.
Fungicides are not effective against the diseases that need wounds for infection, which include Goss's wilt, common smut and stalk rot in corn. For soybeans bacterial blight and bacterial pustule are favored by wounding.
Fungicides are effective at controlling gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, eye spot and common rust on corn, and brown spot and frog eye on soybeans. These diseases do not require wounds for infection.
In limited replicated plot studies by the University of Illinois showed that fungicide applications on hail damaged corn did not statistically increase yield on corn. An Iowa State University study showed no statistical difference between fungicide treated hail damage and non treated hail damaged soybeans.