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Thumb of Michigan | 2 (at least) theories on no till being less infected with white mold. Either one is plausible I suppose.
Theory 1. The residue in a no till field forms a sort of ceiling over the spores, won't let them disperse onto the flowers. Kind of like a 6 foot tall guy trying to jump a foot in a 6 foot 1 inch tall room.
Theory 2. When the temperature an the moisture is right for the sclerotinia to disperse spores, the only thing missing is a dark environment during the day that indicates to the sclerotinia that a big susceptible plant full of flowers is ready to infect. Except, if its residue rather than a plant causing the darker warm environment and it fools the spores into taking flight before the plant even flowers, no harm is done. I've seen the little mushroom things open up and do their thing by sending spores out a couple of weeks after planting under a high residue condition. Didn't care, the crop was a long ways from flowering.
I never really thought one theory was better than the other. Didn't matter to me, had no reason to try to prove one right and one wrong.
We've had white mold for many generations here. First planted a lot of dry beans, and then soybeans. Never tried any side by sides looking for specifically mold issues in different tillage systems. We did have a neighbor who grew seed for the same company we did, and we almost always planted identical varieties as well as harvested for each other. Same varieties on the same soils with the same rotations, only difference being we no tilled and he didn't, if it was a bad year for mold, he'd have it and we wouldn't. Or, at minimum, we'd have much less infection.
There are worse things that one could do to encourage white mold than clean tillage, but I don't know what that would be. Cover crops can help, the more residue the better. Any cover really, I liked rye. Its not that cereal rye has any special powers against white mold, its just that it does a good job of covering ground up.
Edited by pat-michigan 9/2/2015 16:31
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white mold in beans
