Topic Thursday – How about a heatwave?

Fungicides control fungal diseases, that’s a given. But did you know that Plant Health Fungicides from BASF do more than just protect against disease? Products like Priaxor, Revytek, Headline AMP, and Veltyma (just to name a few) actually combat environmental stressors, like heat, too! 

The FLIR image below taken Saturday July 20, 2019 at approximately 2:00 p.m. shows temperature on a color spectrum with the coolest areas in purple and blue and the hottest areas in white and red.

The chart below shows weather history data from the Manhattan, KS Regional Airport Station confirming these staggering temperatures. While this data was from July 2019, these temperatures are quite comparable to the heat wave we experienced a couple weeks ago. Do you remember that heat? How did you handle it? Better yet, how do you think the crops handled it?!

While we were sweating, what was the corn doing to keep cool? Corn plants use a process called transpiration to keep themselves cool. Water movement in plants occurs in special tissue called the xylem. The easiest way to visualize plant vascular tissue is to imagine that there is a drinking straw that runs from the roots to leaves with the straw opening being the stomata. Instead of a person sucking on the straw, mother nature does. If the stomata are open, mother nature is drinking, pulling water through the plant. Just like evaporation of sweat from our skin helps keep us cooler in hot weather, evaporation of water from open stomata, or pores, of leaves helps cool a corn plant.

Under stressful conditions, such as extreme heat or moisture stress, the stomata close. Without water flow through the plant, its temperature can increase which in turn can lead to increased plant stress and push plants more rapidly toward maturity. When we are working to fill the ear, we don't want our plants to speed toward maturation, we want them to continue to conduct photosynthesis and ultimately, continue to drive yield. Plant Health benefits from BASF Plant Health Fungicides can help treated plants better endure such stressors by keeping stomata open. The FLIR comparison captured July 20, 2019 above shows a 4-degree Fahrenheit difference between corn that received an application of Headline AMP on July 16, 2019 (shown on the left) compared to the untreated check strip in the same field (shown on the right).

When making the decision to apply a fungicide this season, don’t choose between plant health and disease control. Choose both! Choose BASF Plant Health Fungicides!