Addressing residue issues this fall can help fight disease next season

This growing season has certainly been a challenging one from the very beginning. Many farmers faced disease, weeds, excessive moisture, and drought — all of which have impacted the quantity and quality of this fall’s harvest.

A wide variety of diseases had an impact this season. Southern Rust, Gray Leaf Spot, Goss’s Bacterial Wilt, Diplodia, Anthracnose Leaf Blight, Northern Corn Leaf Blight, and Gibberella Ear Rot all showed up around the country this season. Unfortunately, not only did diseases impact THIS growing season and its yield, but they can carry over in corn residue into next season as well. This is one of the reasons it is so important to address your residue this fall, starting with Humi-Till^®.

Humi-Till is a unique blend of specific microbes and activated humics designed to decompose cellulose, lignin, and keratin in crop residue. Humi-Till breaks down crop residue — significantly reducing your planting problems and making the nutrients in crop residue more available to next season’s plants.

“I have talked to many farmers about the disease pressure they were under this year,” said Joe Dedman, Monty’s Vice President of Agronomy. “I realized that growers were facing similar issues all over the United States. I reached out to Dr. Ron Heiniger at North Carolina State, Department of Crop Sciences to get his opinion about managing residue decomposition, and destroying disease spores’ habitat.”

“The more you can digest the residue this fall, the less disease pressure your crops will face next season.” said Dr Heiniger. “Humi-Till can be a great tool to decompose the residue which contains the disease spores. This helps reduce the probability of reoccurring disease pressure next season, giving farmers the chance for much healthier crops.”

Humi-Till is money well spent, providing multiple advantages to the farmer — not only digesting the residue and breaking down the environment where disease might thrive during the winter — but it can also increase the growers ROI by as much as $80 (under today’s fertilizer prices) in nutrients returned to the soil to grow next year’s crop. In addition, Humi-Till can help minimize equipment issues caused by tough stalks throwing off chains and puncturing tires, saving growers time and money.

Add Humi-Till to your fall program to manage disease control and add profits to your bottom line. Click here to learn more about Humi-Till.