New Crop Disease in Corn Being Researched

Researchers are examining a new corn disease that has recently cropped up that they call bacterial leaf streak.

Kirk Borders of Colorado State University said they are still early on in their work.

“We have a couple of hypothesis that we are working on, so what I and my collaborators have observed in the field; we believe that it likely survives in the residue from one season to the next.”

There is also evidence, according to Borders, that rain or irrigation can help with the spread.

“If you’ve got high winds in combination with heavy rain that’s splashing those spores up into the air and those aerosols and the small amounts of water can get spread likely multiple miles.”

Currently the impact of the disease seems to be biggest in a reduced yield.