Invited Presenter

Boris X. Camiletti ¹, Eli Gravert ², Bruno D. Pugliese ¹, Agustin Lopez ¹, Noelia Gonzalez ¹, Sirwan Babaei ¹, Jessica Rutkoski ¹
1. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Department of Crop Sciences, Urbana, IL
2. Grow Pro Genetics, Hamel, IL
Corresponding author: Boris X. Camiletti, bxc@illinois.edu

Camiletti, Boris

bxc@illinois.edu

Unmanned aerial spray systems (drones) are increasingly used to apply fungicides to wheat at flowering, but field data on their efficacy against FHB and DON remain limited. We evaluated a DJI AGRAS T10 drone flown 10 ft above the canopy to apply Miravis Ace (13.7 fl oz/A) at Feekes 10.5.1 in a commercial wheat field in Madison County, Illinois, in 2025 and 2026. Treatments were drone applications at 2, 3 (2025 only) and 5 gal/A, a backpack sprayer at 15 gal/A (2026 only), and a non-treated check, arranged in randomized complete blocks with four (2025) or five (2026) replications. In 2026, the grower's ground-rig strips (20 gal/A) were sampled as a reference. FHB incidence and severity were rated on individual heads, and FHB index, DON and yield were determined for each plot. Data were analyzed with linear and generalized linear mixed models and Tukey's test (α = 0.05). In 2025, under high disease pressure, the non-treated check averaged 28.1% incidence, 19.2% FHB index and 2.15 ppm DON. Drone applications at 3 and 5 gal/A reduced incidence by 29 to 31% and FHB index by 40 to 48%, and the 5 gal/A application significantly reduced DON by 53%. The 2 gal/A application was intermediate and did not differ from the check. Yield did not differ among treatments (P = 0.21), although the check yielded 101.4 bu/A and drone-treated plots 109.9 to 111.1 bu/A. In 2026, FHB pressure was low (check: 8.4% incidence, 0.8% FHB index), but DON in the check reached 4.52 ppm. The 5 gal/A drone application was the only treatment that significantly reduced DON (42%), and the backpack application was the only treatment that significantly reduced incidence (57%). All treatments had lower FHB index values than the check, but the differences were not significant (P = 0.06), and yield was not affected (P = 0.71). Ground-rig strips averaged 5.3% incidence and 2.92 ppm DON. In both years, 5 gal/A gave the lowest DON and, in 2026, did not differ from the backpack sprayer. In 2025, 3 gal/A matched 5 gal/A for incidence and FHB index, but its DON (1.47 ppm) did not differ from the check; 2 gal/A was the least effective in both years. These results suggest that carrier volume is an important factor for drone-applied FHB fungicides and that volumes of at least 5 gal/A should be favored until results from additional site-years are available.

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