What are the latest preventive measures for corn crazy top disease?
Corn crazy top disease is a potentially dangerous disorder affecting corn production, and it is also a relatively common disease. This disease is very likely to occur throughout the entire corn growing period, and it has a huge impact on corn yield, often giving farmers headaches. Below, the editor brings you preventive measures. Let's learn about them together.
1. Symptoms
The symptoms of crazy top vary depending on the variety and the stage of disease development. In the early stage of disease, the plant leaves are lighter in color, the leaves curl or have yellow stripes, the plants become shorter and have larger tillers. Some plants are less than 1 m tall, yet have as many as 6-10 tillers. After tasseling, the symptoms often appear as abnormal proliferation and deformation of the tassel, with florets becoming leaf-like, and large numbers of small leaves clustering together, making the tassel look like a hedgehog. On some diseased plants, the upper part of the tassel is normal while the lower part is deformed, appearing round and hydrangea-like. Because the tassel proliferates and grows wildly, it is called “crazy top disease”. Sometimes the ear of a diseased plant does not produce silks, and the leaf tips become abnormal, forming small leaf-like clusters, but sometimes the small leaf-like structures at the front end of the ear husk are a varietal characteristic.
2. Transmission routes
Corn crazy top is a fungal spore systemic infection disease. The pathogen parasitizes in diseased plants or soil. After sowing, the pathogen begins to divide oospores and delivers them to new hosts. Corn is most susceptible to infection during germination. In addition, after infection, seeds can also spread the disease over long distances, thereby inducing new infection areas. Research has found that seeds produced by plants with a normal appearance have a high carrying rate, and the risk of spreading the disease is also high.
3. Preventive measures
Varieties with strong disease resistance should be selected for breeding and planting to prevent early spread of the disease. Newly sown corn should be kept as far away from epidemic areas as possible, do not use diseased plots for planting, and do not introduce seeds from epidemic areas. Strengthen cultivation management. After harvest in diseased fields, promptly remove diseased residual plants and field weeds, destroy them in time, and deeply plow the soil to promote the rotting and decomposition of diseased residues, or implement rotation of corn with non-host crops. During the seedling stage, strictly control the amount of irrigation to avoid flood irrigation, promptly drain field water, and reduce soil moisture. When disease occurs, promptly pull out diseased plants and take them out of the field for destruction to prevent disease spread. Regularly disinfect and sterilize. For control, 59% metalaxyl-mancozeb or 260 ml of Sandofan can be sprayed.
The above is an introduction to the preventive measures for corn crazy top disease. We hope it can help you. To learn more related knowledge, please stay tuned to us.