00:00 Well, hey there, we're talking about the curious case of corn smut and can it be prevented with a fungicide treatment at time of planting in this edition of Extreme ags cutting 00:09 the curve, Welcome to Extreme ags Cutting the Curve podcast, where you get a guaranteed return on investment of your time as we cut your 00:20 learning curve with the information you can apply to your farming operation immediately. Extreme ag, 00:26 we've already made the mistakes so you don't have to. Managing your farm's water resources is a critical component to a successful and sustainable farming operation. 00:38 Advanced drainage systems helps farmers just like you increase their yields up to 30% with their technologically advanced water management products. 00:47 Visit ad s pipe.com to see how they can keep your business flowing. Now, here's your host, Damien Mason. Welcome to 00:56 Another fantastic episode of Extreme as Cutting the Curve. I got Kevin Matthews coming at us from somewhere in North Carolina in a spray 01:02 rig. I've got Gail Stratman from F M C coming at us from his office, and we're talking about something that these guys already did a very brief video 01:11 on, and we said, let's go more in depth on that because this could be a big game changer for a lot of farmers. Basically, in a nutshell, 01:18 Kevin's gonna tell us a discovery post hailstorm, you don't plan for hailstorms, but what do we always like to say? Plan for the worst, hope for the best. He got hailed out on some corn, 01:28 but he didn't get hailed out. He decided how he wants salvage the corn. Take us back to the hail and then where we're going forward and why this 01:34 involves fungicide. Yes. So we got, uh, normally hale's not a big issue for us. Uh, during wheat harvest, which is, uh, second week of June, June 3rd week of June, 01:46 we got a big hail storm. We had corn that was at B eight, so that's not, not awfully big corn, but, um, 01:54 the hail was unlike what we normally see. It was golf ball size to a little bit larger. That's very unusual for our area. 02:02 So in the past we just had small hailstorms and as soon as it happened, we'd go out there and hit stuff with fungicide as quickly as the ground allowed 02:10 us to get on the field. This year, uh, this is our third year using the XY wave fungicide with our planter. We put it down in a two to two form, 02:20 and so the hell hit and I mean, it was bad. We went out and, uh, video, we checked, we dissected the stalks, 02:27 and thank goodness our ear leaf had not got damaged yet. So we was able to realize that immediately. 02:35 But from the Earle down, it was completely shredded. It was just a stall 'cause all that was there, no leaf tissue. So I spoke with my agronomist that worked with me. 02:47 They, they got research and they said, wait a minute, we use XY on those farms. Said, um, 02:54 smuts what we're mostly concerned about with the damage and we think you're protected. Don't spray, don't go out and spray. Well, 03:03 that was pretty hard for me, Gail. I know y'all got a good product, but I still, you know, uh, asked prevention's worth a pound of cure, I'm gonna go get it. 03:13 But, uh, so that's what we held off. And Damien, um, I did split the farm in half later at about R three just to see if it would be any yield benefit, 03:27 but at R three it was very healthy farm. It, I mean, pretty much disease free because there was no foliage at the bottom for the disease to start with. The hell done took care of that. Yeah. But you know, 03:40 it's a learning experience for me and it turned out to be a blessing because it was gonna be, 03:44 it'd been a week or two later before we could have gotten the field unless we done it early. 03:49 So Dale, this, this takeaway here is because I watched the three minute video that Kevin shot in the field, and that's when we're like, and, and Will says, you know, 03:57 we gotta cover this topic more in depth because this is a pretty, this is kind of a big game changer. Um, first off, 04:03 using fungicide at time of planting is kind of a new thing. Anyhow, you've got the product XY way, and we've talked about this quite a bit. 04:08 It does best when you keep it in the two by two, you know, not on top of the seed. We've discovered all that. 04:13 Kevin's going out there and using it, and he's in a part of the world that has a lot of a lot of disease, uh, pressure. So, I mean, we, first time I ever went to his farm, 04:23 we talked a lot about fungicide because that was, you know, in August and his field, daytime, et cetera. 04:28 So the idea is it's not that the hail, in other words, nobody's gonna go and start doing this just because of hail because they hoped like hell, they don't have hail to begin with. Right. 04:38 The real big takeaway is because of the hail, it, it gave Kevin a chance to experiment with not using a secondary cha uh, uh, uh, fungicide treatment because of the, the smut. 04:51 Yeah, I mean the, the bottom line with XY way is, is you've, you've got that level of fungal protection already 04:59 inside the plant, whether you know you need it or not. W w in, in regards to that hail event, you know, like I said, 05:06 a lot of times what happens with a hail event is you lose a lot of leaf area in that process 'cause the hail strips it away. Well, 05:14 that makes it awful difficult a lot of times to get a foliar fungicide actually in that plant to protect it and, and, 05:21 and help that plant what like you're wanting to do because you've lost all the leaves. 05:26 Having this inside the plant already can provide that level of suppression of head smut, um, and, and, 05:35 and keep that pathogen from, from getting started as readily and, and kind of suppress the, the level of infection that you get. Um, you know, 05:44 it'll be interesting to see, uh, in these hail events, you know, not only the the leaf area we leave and the disease there, 05:50 but as we get a little bit later on and, and as we experience, uh, you know, farther west here in the corn belt, 05:56 we get hail events pretty regularly and you get a lot of stalk bruising from that. Mm-hmm. Well, that's also an entry point for some fungal pathogens. 06:05 So it'd be interesting to see how, how those, um, comparisons go this year as well, where guys have got XY way on to see if we, uh, to see how the stalks, uh, 06:16 diseases pro progress and if we can suppress and, and keep the stalk integrity better where we've had some hail events. Kevin, I gotta ask the question because you know, 06:26 I I I think of hail and we don't see it that much around where I am, thank goodness. You know, and in Indiana we just don't have it as bad and, and, 06:35 uh, I just look at that field and I think silage, I think the best option is to try and chop it into silage or maybe call the crop insurance adjuster and get the bush hog out here as soon as he, uh, comes and, 06:46 and you know, does a measurement and writes you a check and you're thinking, no, within the first 48 hours, hit it with fungicide. That's not that. 06:54 I never knew that or never would've thought crossed my mind until I watched your video. 06:59 Has this been something you've done for a long time or is this something you came upon the last few years? Like, hey, 07:03 if you get hit with hail fungicide as soon as possible? Uh, we've been doing it for quite a few years, um, as we've gotten taller sprayers and options and helicopters to spray with, 07:15 you know, it's become more of a normal, but again, we don't have it that often. So probably two out of five years that we had this issue. 07:24 Right now we, this was the most devastating that we've experienced and we did notify our crop insurance agent, Damien, because I, 07:33 I wasn't real sure the bruising that Gail just spoke of. So on the northwest side of all the stalls was terrible bruising. 07:42 And, um, the, the plants our agronomist is watching. He was just in 'em again last week and they look good. I mean, it's more than likely 180 200 bushel corn. 07:54 I wouldn't give you 50 bushels for it, you know, a week after the storm. Mm-hmm. So you, you've been doing the fungicide immediately after hail, unless, 08:04 unless the field's riddled. I mean, obviously at some point you say fungicide, no fungicide, this field's done right. 08:11 I, you know, Gail's got more experience with that where he lives than I do, but in my opinion, 08:16 it's gonna depend on the growth stage that the hailstorm occurs at. And then keeping the flag, keeping the, uh, eerily was the critical, 08:26 maybe that was the critical decision. What do you think, Gail, were you, were you consulted on this? 08:30 Yeah, I mean, like I said, Kevin, Kevin's right, it, it really depends on that growth stage of that plant. You know, we had some, uh, we had some hail events here in, in my local area here, uh, 08:41 the 4th of July and the week after when, you know, we had corn just into pollination and, and, and beans just starting, uh, pod fill and it was pretty severe. And, and in those cases, you, you, it, 08:54 the decision was made for you pretty quick. It didn't take a whole lot of, uh, deciphering to, to understand what, what those fields were gonna amount to. 09:02 It's, it's those situations that Kevin gets in, um, or like he's described in your, where it's a little early in the growing season where that plant can probably 09:09 handle a little bit of, of, of damage to it from a foliage standpoint, but it's gonna come back out of it as long as you protect some of those 09:18 critical, um, you know, the ear leaf and some of that stuff above that, that where you can really see the benefit of, 09:25 of that fungicide being in the plant, whether you do that foliar or do that with, with XY way. Um, but like I said, we, there's definitely situations where it becomes readily apparent that this is 09:36 silage or something less than that. Mm-hmm. And, uh, and, and, and you've make that decision pretty quick and, and, and move on from there. 09:44 But, uh, um, and, and like I said, that growth stage, the later on you get, um, you know, once you hit those reproductive stages, you can't, 09:51 you can't regrow those leaves. So that plant is, is basically starving for, to fill that ear. You get so much, uh, 09:58 physical damage that there isn't much left. So, uh, um, you know, earlier in the season, you can stand it later in the season. 10:04 Pretty tough to come back from. Okay. I'm gonna keep, uh, that's good information. So I'm gonna keep asking quick, uh, quick fire questions, Kevin. 10:12 If it was a month later different decision, in other words, if it was mid-July or something like that, 10:18 it would've been a different decision. Yeah, I mean if it's, it's, there's just so many verbals there, Damian, I, if it's right during pollination and you, 10:30 you really stripped it off, it's gonna be hard to spend much more money. Right. Depend on the kinda insurance you got too. Every, 10:38 every farmer's got different levels of insurance, so that's gonna play in. Right. 10:42 Uh, next question. If you are in North Carolina where, you know, you have a lot of disease pressure because of climatological issues, 10:50 if this hailstorm happens somewhere, I say Minnesota, is there less likelihood of smi? In other words, I know that we're saying, boy, the XY way turns out it saved us a lot of hassle because it already protected 11:02 the plant, you know, post opening up with the hail that's in North Carolina. If I was in a northern climate, Dakotas, Minnesota, 11:11 would I have less need for it because there's less smut or smut, uh, prevalent all over Gail. 11:17 It's a, it's a soil-borne pathogen, so generally it's in the residue and it, it maintains itself for a long time. So even, 11:26 even crop rotations aren't going to get rid of it. It, it's going to be there, you know, crop rotations can suppress the, the amount of, of, uh, 11:34 spores and, and and fungal infection that you can see. But it's, but it, once you have and it's in those fields, it's, it's there for, uh, for the, 11:43 for a long time it was pretty much as long as you're growing crop. So, um, it's, does this 11:48 Four Evans part of the world, it's in Minnesota, it's our part of the world farther south. That's what I say. 11:54 There's four to six months of below freezing temperature whack it, it doesn't, no. Okay. It's, 11:59 It's, it's an extremely hardy spore and, and a and a pathogen that, uh, cold weather temperatures and that sort of thing don't seem to have any effect 12:07 upon it. Okay. Then going back to Kevin, if this experiment works and you've got a great example or a great opportunity to turn this into an experiment that you didn't plan on back in the spring, 12:17 but you're doing it now, does that mean XY way goes on more acres because it, it's, it's not just because of hail, 12:25 because obviously planning for hail is not the thing. It's more that it alleviates a fungicide passed very likely for you for smut protection come August. 12:35 Yeah, like I said, I, I th I think there's, uh, a lot of benefits there. You know, there's the disease protection we've always talked about. There's, 12:42 there's some of the other, uh, physiological things that we're seeing around root mass development and, and, and water uptake. 12:50 This hail piece of it and that protection that can pro provide because of the timing and how you put it on, 12:55 I think is another piece that really kind of demonstrates the value of, of changing it up a little bit and, 13:01 and utilizing a product this way that's already in the plant versus trying to treat a problem or put a bandaid on a problem after the, uh, 13:10 after the issue or a problem has already occurred. Yeah. And Gail's, right? I mean, we're just using more and more of it, Damien, the head smuts really not what we're after, we're after all our, 13:21 our fo leaf diseases, but, um, this is just another piece. It's just icing on top of the cake, really. You get right down to it. Yeah. 13:30 It's, it's just not an issue. Our most varieties are bred to help alleviate that, and they're defensive against it, 13:39 but when you damage that ear and the damage the tissue, then that's when the head, but is more prevalent. But for us, it's really not a problem unless we have an event like this. Okay. 13:52 But it's just nice to know we're just using more and more of it because we're not having to go back in a lot of these fields we're, you know, 14:00 we're getting really good control in this heavy disease environment. It's been, But that's the question. So corn smuts not really your biggest concern, uh, 14:08 unless it's a, a hail or something like that. So, so you're not, you're not sold on using this product because of corns, uh, smut. 14:16 'cause that's not really usually that big of a threat to you, but the fact that it's looks pretty evident that it prevents or saves 14:24 you a late season fungicide pass, maybe not always, but generally, right. Well, it's the insurance. I mean, 14:33 it's kind of like having a rider put on your insurance policy with additional insurance that no extra premium cost. I mean, that's, 14:40 you're just getting a little more insurance in this deal. Yeah. So anyway, uh, what are you, uh, what this is kind of new to you, Gail, 14:48 or is this something that you kind of, is this something you thought was gonna happen and now we gotta see it? Or, uh, Well, this, this is, so this is something we've, uh, 14:56 we've tried to look at more in, in the past, you know, and, and again, it becomes a little bit of a challenge trying to get the disease and the 15:04 conditions and everything to line up so that you can, you can, uh, create that situation to really test it. Uh, like I said, xw is, 15:12 is labeled for suppression of head smut. So we, you know, we've collected data in the past that demonstrates it does suppress and, 15:18 and help with heads smut. Um, but it's these real world situations like Kevin's got and, and other ones that we're seeing out there this year that really kinda, uh, 15:27 lay the testament to does this actually work and, and how well does it suppress head smut when that situation arises? Uh, like I said, head, head smut is a pathogen. It's always there. Mm-hmm. Um, 15:39 it infects the plant early in the season, but it takes, usually takes a stressor event to rally to really get it to show itself. Hail is usually one of the most common ones that, 15:50 that demonstrates that. So, uh, we'll continue to get more and more information on this and, and be able to hopefully be able to recommend and, and, 15:58 and be more precise in, in how well we see it working here. Uh, after this year's performance, 16:05 Devin, do you see a future where you stick in, uh, a product, uh, say like sway at time of planting and then you never have to put fungicide on 16:15 again? Oh, yeah. Which I never thought I'd see this, uh, when three years ago in Florida when they was fixing introduce it, I, I said, 16:26 this is too good to be true. And in the first year we used it in some situations that it didn't work that good in. And once we figured out with the help fmc, the proper way to use it, 16:36 uh, yeah, it's been a beautiful thing and, and I've got neighbors delore using it. I mean, there's just thousands of acres of it being used now, our small, 16:44 irregular shaped fields. It just is a really good fit. Well, you're on, you're in your spray rig right now. It doesn't look like you're in, 16:52 it doesn't look like you're in one of your one acre patches, but when you're, when you're out there when, when 10 foot tall corn or 12 foot tall corn and, 17:01 and you think, what if I could prevent this necessity for this pass by doing something at time of planting, it seems to me that you'd probably make that decision every day. 17:11 Oh, absolutely. I mean, this morning we looked at both sprayers and we've done hit, you know, we're already at 23,000 acres this year, uh, on two new sprayers and, 17:22 and, um, so I'm tired of riding. Yeah, right, right, right, right, right, right. Well, anyway, this is kind of a fascinating thing. So if you didn't watch the video, 17:31 dear listener and viewer, go back and watch the previous video about this topic. Kevin just shows you the actual plants. Uh, 17:38 of course you've probably seen out corn before. Uh, it's a three minute video. We wanted to go more in depth with it because we thought this is pretty valuable 17:45 information that maybe you can apply to your farm. So his name's Gail Stratman with F M C, Kevin Matthews coming at you from a sprayer on, on a 23rd, 17:54 23001st acre that he's covering in North Carolina this year. Thanks for being here. We're talking about smut, we're talking about season long control. 18:03 It might save you money and labor and knocked over corn with a a late season pass you may not need to make till next time. 18:10 Thanks for being here. Share this with somebody that can benefit from it, like everything else, like extreme Magno farm, hundreds of videos, 18:18 hundreds of these podcasts. Share 'em. Let somebody benefit from it. That's why Kevin and and his buddies started this whole organization three years 18:26 ago, extreme Ag Farm. Till next time, I'm Damien Mason. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve, but there's plenty more. Check out Extreme Ag Farm where you can find past episodes, 18:37 instructional videos and articles to help you squeeze more profit outta your farm. Cutting the curve is brought to you by Advanced Drainage Systems, 18:47 the leader in agriculture, water management solutions.