“Fungicide use has reached a critical mass of loyal fungicide users who are using it as a practice and not in response to disease,” said Ruhiyyih Dyrdahl-Young, fungicide product manager with the ag chemical company BASF. “The new generation of fungicides offer better and more consistent performance.”

Some chemicals designed to combat disease may benefit plants in other ways.

“There are physiological benefits to fungicides that go beyond controlling disease,” Dyrdahl-Young said. “They offer increased environmental tolerances, improve growth efficiency and proven disease performance.”

She added that BASF research indicates that fungicide application suppresses production of ethylene, what she calls “the alarm hormone” in plants.

“When the crop goes through a stressful event like a windstorm, hail, drought and excessive heat, the plant produces ethylene to kick off all of the plant’s stress response,” Dyrdahl-Young said. “While the plant is producing that ethylene and in that stress mode it is redirecting that energy away from yield. Applying the fungicide reduces the ethylene production. Without ethylene the plant doesn’t get the signal to have that stress response. Therefore, it can get through that stressed state without the same yield penalty.”