ROI- farmers are looking for more of it as they sharpen their pencils ahead of the 2024 planting season. University trials and farmer testimonials suggest that when it comes to corn disease prevention, Xyway fungicide from FMC will give you more return on investment.

Xyway is an at-plant fungicide that provides season-long systemic foliar disease protection against grey leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, and many other foliar diseases. Gail Stratman with FMC says they’re also seeing suppression of tar spot. They’re also consistently seeing higher yield.

“Not only are we seeing the outstanding disease control, but we’re also capitalizing and viewing a lot of other physiological impacts that we’re seeing on that crop. We’re seeing a much larger root mass, more root hairs, more root development, and then we’re seeing that translocate into stock diameter and stalk health throughout the growing season. We get very good control of stalk diseases, things like fusarium crown rot and anthracnose crown rot and anthracnose stalk rot throughout the growing season.”

As you do look to sharpen that pencil, Stratman says fungicide applications have shown a consistent response over the past 5-10 years. And with Xyway, applying it at planting provides several benefits.

“Essentially, we’re saving a pass across the field that we could be spending money on later in the season. We gain efficiencies that way. We get more utilization out of that planter pass across the field and we basically treat every plant in the field because we’re laying that down alongside the row with the seeds. So, we get the maximum of application, we get the ultimate in flexibility because you can apply Xyway any way you want, as long as it’s not right on the seed.”

Stratman says research on Xyway continues as many growers have shown tremendous results in using it as a side-dress application. They’ll continue to work with universities like Purdue and Michigan State to learn more. You can learn more about Xyway from FMC at their website.