Last year's experience in Odesa region showed what weather conditions trigger the epiphytoty of sunflower downy mildew.

Epidemics of sunflower peronosporosis (downy mildew) appear after several consecutive dry years. Dry years block the development of soil fungi antagonists and there is an accumulation of infection by pathogenic fungi in the soil. SuperAgronom.com was told by Iryna Borovska, a phytopathologist at VNIS, about this. By the way, peronosporosis is capable of destroying up to 50% of the sunflower crop. Last year, the rapid spread of peronosporosis was also recorded in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava regions. Interestingly, fusarium rot of corn (root, basal, and stem forms) manifests itself in a similar way, after several dry years. Despite climate change, diseases do not disappear anywhere and even new conditions for their evolution are emerging. Therefore, only the cultivation of resistant hybrids to peronosporosis and other diseases can curb their spread, says the phytopathologist. Under such conditions, the yield sign of the sunflower hybrid takes a ...