Warm temperatures may have you spraying sooner than expected.

If you’ve been tracking USDA crop rating reports, you’re aware that we haven’t seen corn and soybeans this good in nearly 30 years. Despite the slow start, temperatures across the country have been consistently higher than expected for this time of year and have caused corn and soybeans to mature faster than usual.

The University of Illinois Bulletin reported an average of more than 18 GDD per day for corn, compared to the usual 12 GDD, due to the above-average temperatures seen in May. The high temperatures caused corn to accumulate the 115 or so GDD needed to emerge in a week, when normally it takes 10-11 days. If June brings the normal 650 to 700 GDD, tassels and silks may appear in fields before the Fourth of July.

If crops continue at this pace, its possible pollination could happen earlier than normal this year. That means you’ll need to be ready for fungicide applications sooner than you might expect. Even if crops don’t continue to mature at this pace, the question of how to get the most out of your fields at harvest still remains.

While temperatures have been higher than normal so far, the forecast calls for rain and lower temperatures this week. The shift to cooler temperatures and wet conditions will likely favor disease development in many areas.

The key to making sure your corn and soybean acres finish strong is using the right tools to protect against disease and insects. This will help maximize grain fill and protect stalk and pod strength for best ROI. For long-lasting disease control, we recommend Trivapro®, the only fungicide on the market that can be applied at tassel/R1 in corn and at R3 in soybeans, and last until harvest. Trivapro provides long-lasting control of corn diseases like rusts, gray leaf spot and Northern corn leaf blight, as well as soybean diseases like frogeye leaf spot, rusts and Septoria brown spot, among others.

For added efficiency and cost-saving in soybeans, we recommend tank mixing Endigo® ZC insecticide with Trivapro at R3 for quick knockdown and extended residual control of key foliar insect pests such as aphids and bean leaf beetles. Pairing these treatments together will save you a trip across the field and give you the insect and disease protection you need to ensure soybeans reach their full yield potential. The chart below shows the strengths of Trivapro and Endigo ZC.

Trivapro strengths	Endigo ZC strengths
Protects against frogeye leaf spot and Septoria brown spot with harder-working, longer-lasting preventive and curative disease control Provides up to 42 days of residual disease control Helps plants optimize water use under dry conditions Enables plants to better recognize full yield potential by maximizing photosynthesis	Offers quick knockdown of soybean aphids Moves quickly into and through leaves for maximum protection Provides up to 21 days of insect control Controls populations of soybean aphids with documented pyrethroids resistance

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