The Fungicide Check List Key For Season Ahead

Growers should be carefully monitoring their return on investment checklist for the 2026 growing season. Aaron Kromann, an agronomy service representative with Syngenta, talked about what growers should be watching as they protect that valuable ROI.

“One of the biggest hurdles every season is the weather, and we never really know what to expect," Kromann noted. "There's variability every year, and so, looking through what to expect this year, nobody really knows. And so, going into that, we really do have to be prepared for what could happen. We planted the host crop. That's done. The pathogen is likely already in the soil, other than southern rust, which typically blows north. And then the third one is the weather, and so if you hit all three of those, we're for sure going to have some level of disease. It could be a pretty heavy disease influx, or it could be pretty minor, and we really don't know what that is, and it's really going to depend on the weather. Each disease is going to have different environmental conditions that they require to survive, and really hurt our crop.”

When growers look at a fungicide ROI checklist, there are several boxes to check.

“The first and foremost is you want a solid fungicide that is going to take care of those diseases," Kromann continued. "Tar spot. Lately, it's been southern rust that has been pretty significant, and then also some ear rots as well, including other diseases that we typically see every year as well. Secondly, that's with the weather that's providing those conditions for those diseases to pop up, but we also have those drier conditions that we may see that crop being a little bit more stressed, and so choosing a fungicide that helps mitigate some of those stresses for that crop is also something that growers can choose to utilize. In an ideal scenario, you're going to want to choose a product that's going to be beneficial in both worlds, whether we have really hot and dry conditions, to help mitigate some of those stresses, or cooler and wetter, or hot and wet. Really, choose a product that's going to be universal across all those environmental conditions.”

Kromann also talked about which fungicide helps growers check those ROI boxes.

“We have a Miravis Neo fungicide. It's our latest product that we brought to market a couple of years ago, and utilizing this product, you are getting three modes of action on both diseases and also helping out with plant health stress mitigation," he said. "So, utilizing Miravis Neo, you're getting an SDHI inhibitor, which is the new foundation, I guess, for both disease control and plant health benefits. It’s really strong on all the diseases that we talked about, and then also helps mitigate stress that we can see throughout the growing season.”

Kromann also stressed it's important to always read and follow the label.