Wheat in the Eastern shore and the Southern part of the Western shore of Maryland has finished flowering, except for a few late-planted fields. Up in the Northwestern counties of the state (Frederick, Howard, Carroll, Harford) also wheat is either flowering currently or is already past flowering. In spite of the sporadic rain events, the risk for FHB is low currently, mostly because of the cool spring season that we are experiencing. We are observing some powdery mildew, rusts, and Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) in some of our test plots at Wye right now. If you are noticing these foliar diseases and thinking of controlling them, it is important to remember that Strobulurin-containing fungicides should not be applied at this stage even for controlling these. BYDV cannot be controlled by fungicides as it is a viral disease. The FHB fungicides (Prosaro/ Miravis-Ace/ Sphaerex/ Prosaro-Pro) will be able to control the other fungal foliar diseases as well.

--Nidhi Rawat, Small Grains Pathologist, University of Maryland