When do corn fungicides pay?

By Stephanie Karhoff, Ohio State Extension

Rising input costs and fluctuating grain prices may lead growers to reconsider fungicide use in corn this year or ask when they are most likely to yield an economic return. Recently the Corn Disease Working Group, a collaborative network of corn pathologists across the United States and Canada, published results from a study aimed at determining if, and when, corn fungicides pay (Dangal et al., 2026).

They combined 152 fungicide efficacy trials conducted across 18 states in the United States and Ontario, Canada from 2019 to 2022 to better understand the yield benefit of fungicide products compared to a nontreated control and evaluate fungicide timing. They also included economic analyses to find which products were most profitable across disease environments.  

All fungicide products tested significantly reduced disease severity (percentage of leaf area affected by disease) compared to the untreated control. Xyway ^®  LFR^® applied 2×2 was the only product tested that did not have a significant yield gain compared to the control.… Continue reading