Winter weather events early this year helped bring much-needed moisture to western Illinois, but will a mild winter have a lasting impact on the 2024 crop? Asgrow and DEKALB Technical Agronomist Lance Tarchionne says a mild winter may have more of an impact on pests than plant diseases.
“Probably more insects are impacted, maybe, by a mild winter. Sometimes when [winter] is mild, it’s wetter and sometimes just being wet can impact things. You can not necessarily say that a mild winter causes a lot of those types of problems,” says Tarchionne. “A lot of our diseases, like tar spot for example, it doesn’t really matter what the winter is– what June weather is going to have more of an impact on what kind of tar spot pressure we have.”
Tarchionne adds that diseases, such as southern rust, will overwinter regardless of the winter conditions and temperatures.
