 Okay, I'm Michael Vunch, I'm the plant pathologist at the Carrington Research Center, and I'm here at the Oaks Research Site, which has been one of our critical locations for doing white mold research on soybeans. This is an irrigated sand, it's a production region with quite a bit of irrigated sands and associated soybean, corn, potato and other crop production, and white mold is a real issue on the soybeans down here, as it is in most irrigated places and sporadically in dry land production. And when I began working on this, one of the main motivations was the poor control that growers and crop advisors have been reporting in terms of their ability to get white mold control of fungicides on soybeans. I had a lot of complaints that the growers and crop advisors just could not get consistent activity out of fungicides on soybeans for white mold, even though they could get consistent activity on dry beans, but not on soybeans. And so we set out to work on this problem. The very first thing that we did was we looked at the application timing, and when fungicides should be applied, and surprisingly, even though there's always been recommendations to apply, typically at R1 has been the recommendation, surprising there was very little data to support such a timing. The only study that had been done compared an R1 versus an R3 application timing, and they inoculated the soybeans with the pathogen at R2. And so no surprise, the fungicide timing that preceded the pathogen inoculation worked better. But really there was no rigorous information beyond that. And so we set out to look at this, and we conducted field trials at four locations across North Dakota, here in Oaks on irrigated sand, close to Williston on irrigated sand there as well, in Carrington with supplemental overhead irrigation applied as needed in dry years, and up in Langdon. So you had Northeast, Northwest, Central, and Southeastern North Dakota covered. And we did this for three years. And what we found was very interesting. What we found is that when the canopy was closed at the late R1 growth stage, when 60 to 85 percent of plants had at least one open blossom, we optimized fungicide timing at that time if conditions favored white mold. But only if the canopy was closed. Even if conditions favored white mold, if the canopy was not closed, and there's still ground showing between the rows, you are better off waiting until R2. The same thing we found when you got to early R2, before 100 percent of plants had an open blossom at one of the top two nodes. And fewer than 100 percent of plants had an open blossom at one of the top two nodes. We optimized our fungicide application at that early R2 growth stage only if the canopy was closed. If there was still ground showing between the rows, we optimized the efficacy of the fungicide by waiting until 100 percent of plants were at the R2 growth stage. Now we conducted these studies with soybeans seeded to rows 7 inches apart, 14 or 15 inches apart, 21 or 22 and a half inches apart, and 28 or 30 inches apart. And what we did then is we had a whole range of times when the canopy would close. And so there were certainly a lot of trials in those soybeans seeded to rows 28 or 30 inches apart where the canopy would not close to the R3 growth stage. And I've often heard from growers that they'll wait until canopy closes or crop advisers. And so we tested that. And what we found is that once you got to 100 percent of plants at R2 growth stage, if conditions favored white mold, it didn't matter whether canopy was closed or not. You needed to apply the fungicide then. Even if there was ground showing between the rows, if you waited to apply your fungicide until the early R3 growth stage, 7 out of 8 of the trials, we got reduced efficacy out of the fungicide. Okay, even when you had ground showing between the rows. In essence what's going on is this. When you're at the R1 to early R2 growth stage, there are not made dead blossoms out there. But when the canopy is closed, it can trap the humidity. And those few dead blossoms out there can cause infections. And that's why that will be the optimal timing for the fungicide if the canopy is closed. But when the canopy is open, there are very few dead blossoms and you don't get enough infection events because of the air flow. Once you get to 100 percent of plants at R2 growth stage, you're at full bloom. There are a lot of dead blossoms in the canopy. And what happens is that there's so many dead blossoms that even if you have air flow between the rows, if conditions favor white mold, you have cool wet weather or it's cool and you're irrigating with a pivot. What happens is that you have enough dead blossoms that even with that air flow, you're getting significant number of infection events. And that's why when you hit that 100 percent R2 growth stage, if you have that cool wet weather or cool wet weather plus overhead pivot irrigation, you need to put on the fungicide then. And these are the results of over 20 field studies conducted in four different locations across three different years. And soybeans seeded to four different row spacings, very rigorous data. And what we were able to do is by optimizing fungicide timing relative to the growth stage in canopy characteristics, we were able to improve the efficacy of the fungicide typically between 50 and 100 percent, i.e., almost double the efficacy of the fungicide. And no additional cost of the fungicide, just getting the fungicide on at the right time. With that, thank you very much. If you have questions, go to the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center website, Google NDSU Carrington, click on Plant Pathology and scroll down to the presentation on optimizing fungicide application timing and soybeans for white mold. Thank you.