The fundamentals of disease management was the topic of my interview with Bruce Stripling, Horseshoe East Technical Services Manager, FMC. Besides talking with me in the FMC booth, Bruce also presented during an FMC educational session at the 2019 National Farm Machinery Show.
We started out our conversation talking about why you need a fungicide. Bruce says that the first step is to identify what kind of disease you have and then to pick a product that will ideally prevent that one from becoming a problem. He says there are some significant problem diseases like grey leaf spot and tar spot. Another one showing resistance to Strobi class fungicides is frogeye leaf spot and FMC has products like Topguard EQ and Lucento, which have multiple chemical components to address the resistance problem.
According to Bruce another key question farmers have is how to determine when to apply a fungicide. Rather than thinking you should apply it at a certain growth stage Bruce suggests scouting your fields and when you see that there is a disease making an appearance, that’s when you need to choose the best fungicide to prevent it from becoming a problem.
Listen to my interview with Bruce Stripling, Horseshoe East Technical Services Manager at FMC: Interview with Bruce Stripling, FMC