A plant pathologist says he’s getting more reports of tar spot in Wisconsin cornfields. Dr. Damon Smith with the University of Wisconsin tells Brownfield he’s getting a lot of phone calls lately, and he’s not surprised to see a pattern for tar spot infestation. “It’s basically been moving where we’ve had rainfall, so where we had consistent rainfall, so you can imagine the kind of northern tier and northeast part of the state (has) higher epidemics there, and then as we move down into, say, the southeastern part of the state where we’ve had a more substantial drought, we see less tar spot there.”
Smith says he’s seeing some differences between corn hybrids, which is good for his research because there are signs of tar spot resistance in some hybrids. Smith says farmers seeing tar spot have to make some decisions about what to do with that crop.
