To spray or not to spray?... that is the question

As many fields are now at full tassel, I am getting the question "Do I still spray my corn with fungicide even though there is no diseases present?" In my opinion, there are benefits to fungicides even in the absence of disease. Veltyma or Headline AMP both provide plant health benefits that help mitigate stresses.With the heat and variable rain patterns, Headline AMP and other Headline based fungicides have shown to help plants mitigate hot and dry periods of time (as seen in the picture above, with the treated rows on the left). Even in the absence of disease, these plant health benefits have shown to protect yield.The data above is from the 3 year, multi-hybrid fungicide study. You can see that even in 2014 and 2016 when disease pressure was low, responses to the fungicide still occurred across a majority of the hybrids tested. This was likely driven from the unique plant health benefits found in BASF fungicides. For more information on this trial, ask your local BASF rep.Although your field may not look like this yet, Gray Leaf Spot (GLS) is present at low levels in several fields that I have scouted. Usually this disease climbs up from the bottom of the plant and can be found on lower leaves (right now I am finding it up to 2 leaves below the main ear leaf). Remember that GLS has a longer latent period (the time from infection to when we see the rectangular lesion) of up to 14 days or so. This means that even though you may not see disease today, there could be disease in your field and lesions will show up later (especially in fields that have GLS on the lower leaves). If we catch the rain this week, conditions could be favorable for further disease development.If your field is at full tassel, waiting until you see disease to spray (up to two weeks from now) will put the fungicide application past the optimimum window for protection and yield response. Utilize the residual of Veltyma or Headline AMP by spraying now to protect against disease development and to reduce stresses on the crop to maximize your return on investment.