PHIL THORNTON

ARMSTRONG, IL

“One and Done” FITS CONTRACT CORN GROWN IN ILLINOIS

Situation

Phil Thornton of Armstrong, Ill., and his son-in-law Jim Carley raise corn and soybeans. As contract growers for Frito Lay, they only grow corn varieties approved by the chip maker, which can meet their contract obligations. Unfortunately, their best yielding corn variety has a low tolerance for stress.

“Under late season stress, this particular variety would drop ears,” said Thornton. “It will cannibalize the stalk; it cannibalizes the shank, and boom, it drops ears. By the same token, that variety continued to be my best yielding. I couldn’t give it up.”

Thornton tried to use fungicides to reduce plant stress. One year, he’d try Headline®. And the next year, he’d try Stratego®. Both products required expensive aerial applications and neither one satisfied the grower. “It got to the point that I’m not seeing enough yield increase to justify the cost,” he said. “I couldn’t see a difference. So, I bailed out (on fungicides) for a couple of years. I said, ‘I’m not spending $30 to get $31 or $32 back.’”

Solution

Disappointed by late season fungicide applications, Thornton continued to settle for corn ear-drop under stress. Then he and Carley—who has partnered with him for only a few years—learned about a new product called FORTIX® Fungicide. It offers a “One and Done” strategy—full-season fungicide benefits with just one early application. FORTIX combines fluoxastrobin, a fast-acting strobilurin, and flutriafol, the most residual and systemic of all triazoles. The complimentary modes of action provide broad spectrum activity against a variety of plant diseases.

“I don’t have to recover $10-$12 an acre for an airplane to fly over,” said Thornton. “And I’m already paying for an applicator to make a trip to put the post application of herbicides on. I just really, really like the timing.”

“So what I did,” recalled Thornton, “I said, ‘I’m going to try FORTIX and I’m going to target the variety that drops ears to start with.’ There were four farms treated. Our chemical applicator agreed to do the check strips for us when he was ready to post apply chemicals in the field. So, FORTIX went on with the post application of herbicide.”

Then Thornton waited to see if FORTIX would meet his expectations. In corn, FORTIX provides season-long control against Gray leaf spot, Southern and Northern corn leaf blight, Northern corn leaf spot, Anthracnose leaf blight, Common and Southern rust and Eye spot.

“If you get into a really wet July and August, there can be disease pressure that you don’t see until all of a sudden—boom. It’s probably too late to really do a lot of good (with a fungicide application) at that point. FORTIX has got its free ride,” noted Thornton. For the two growers, the question became would that “free ride” prevent ear drop?

Success

“What I started to notice was a healthier plant,” observed Thornton. And at harvest, he related, a yield check revealed more bushels, too. On one farm, corn treated with FORTIX averaged 168 bushels per acre compared to untreated corn at 159 bushels per acre. “Nine bushels difference,” calculated Thornton.

“We had absolutely no ear droppings, which was a big, big encouragement for us,” he said. “That particular variety could easily drop seven to eight bushels per acre on the ground.”

On the second farm, the yield benefit with FORTIX was even more pronounced. “The untreated check was running 168 bushels and the FORTIX was averaging 188—essentially 20 bushels more,” said Thornton.

“We’ve already discussed that we are going to use more FORTIX,” said Thornton. It is better to maintain plant health early on than to wait until the middle of July to try to treat a problem, he believes.

“We are excited about FORTIX. We are going to use it again and we are going to use it on more acres.”

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