New tools available to combat peanuts disease

It’s an ironic twist that the same weather conditions which produce high-yielding peanut crops — warm and wet — also provide an ideal environment for diseases to flourish.

Fortunately, the tools are available to minimize the impact. And this year, there are a few new materials to add to the arsenal.

Elast 400 was recently approved for use by the EPA and is being touted as an economical alternative for chlorothalonil for leafspot control on peanuts. “This is an older chemistry that has been used on other crops for years,” says Austin Hagan, Auburn University Extension plant pathologist.

The fungicide’s active ingredient dodine has been marketed in the United States for about 30 years for the control of diseases of fruits like apples and pears as well as several nut crops. “It is distributed by Aceto Agricultural Products and apparently is very price competitive with generic chlorothalonil formulations,” he says.

A new formulation of Evito also is available this season, Evito-T, says Hagan. It is a pre-mix of fluoxastrobin and tebuconazole. “It’s more of a leafspot/white mold material with tebuconazole added to the formulation to beef up the white mold control and give a little protection as far as resistance management,” he says.

Reduced-tillage — compared to conventional tillage — will help slow down leafspot disease, he says. “Reduced-tillage certainly won’t control the disease, but it’ll slow it down,” says Hagan.

New peanut varieties are now available to growers that have some resistance to leafspot, he says, and that’s a big help in reducing the amount of damage in a crop. GA-03L, Tifgard and FLA-07 all showed good resistance to leafspot in trials, says Hagan.

The “very basics” of peanut disease control, says Hagan, still include — where you’re planting into a field where you’ve had peanuts in the past — to start spraying 30 to 40 days after planting, and re-apply every 12 to 14 days, based on weather patterns.