Goss’s Wilt Discovered In Louisiana Corn
June 26, 2013 Louisiana corn growers are waiting for confirmation that Goss’s wilt disease has been found in some corn fields in Madison Parish.
“Unless I have skipped something in the literature, this is the first report of Goss’s wilt in Louisiana,” said LSU AgCenter plant pathologist Clayton Hollier.
On June 18, samples were taken from corn fields in Madison Parish that had both classic leaf symptoms and disease spread pattern of Goss’s wilt in the corn hybrid DK 6694, he said.
“During the 2011 corn growing season, there were reports of Goss’s wilt in northeast Louisiana, but further investigation found that these were fertilizer burn, herbicide burn and drought symptoms that were widespread that year,” Hollier said.
In Madison Parish, a local aerial applicator who flew over the field first noticed a 50-foot circle of affected plants. The grower called in several people from industry and the LSU AgCenter to investigate, Hollier said.
They found several circles of damaged plants radiating out from a central source that suggested seed transmission.
Since those observations the field has been isolated, and Hollier and his team are awaiting positive identification of the bacterium.
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