The opportunity to plant corn early in the spring, sometimes even a week or two early, can help farmers grow stronger plants with maximum harvest yield potential.
However, for farmers to have a successful early planting season they need to depend on the right environment which can be temperamental at best in April. Starting to plant earlier allows farmers to cover more acreage by the end of April, up to 44-45 million acres in the past few years.
In the last five years, conditions have been wetter and cooler than expected, causing ideal conditions for an uptick in early season crop disease. BASF has the first in-furrow fungicide called Xanthion which protects seedlings from diseases like Rhizoctonia seedling rot, Fusarium seedling rot and Pythium.
Xanthion also provides enhanced root growth, seedling vigor, cold tolerance, increased plant emergence and stand counts as well as increased nutrient and water uptake.
Growers who used Xanthion in field trials produced more than 1,700 plants than untreated seedlings per acre 21 days after planting.
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