Corn producers find themselves in a corn disease conundrum. On the one hand they are being encouraged to try farming without tillage, or some type of minimum-till at the most. Those who have gone to min-till now find themselves staring down eyespot, a corn disease that was once just a nuisance, but has now exploded heavy in central Iowa fields. Researchers don't know that much about eyespots' affect on yields — they guess from 2 to 4 percent yield reduction. They aren't too certain, either, about the right treatment threshold (that magic number that goes from "treatment that won't gain enough to cover the cost" to "if you don't treat, you'll lose more than the cost of spraying.")

It just seems like a kick in the teeth. The very min-till practices used to be gentler on the land and encourage more soil "tilthiness," is the same practice that breeds eyespot and yield-robbing fungi. The lack of tillage means that the previous years’ corn stalks break down slower. Corn fungi can survive some years on the ground.

Sometimes it just doesn’t seem fair. And yet, here producers get to raise their children in Iowa — still some pretty good small school districts around here — and get to breathe air they don’t have to look at first. You can still wave at a stranger on the road and get a nod or a wave in return. AND Arnold isn’t our governor and the state isn’t handing out IOUs that it will likely never pay.

Maybe a little crop conundrum is a small price to pay for the privilege of living in the Heartland.

Have a good week.

--kersh