Exploring the Effects of Fungicide Use on Corn Health and Microbiome

Corn is one of the most valuable cash crops globally, with annual grain production in the United States alone valued at nearly $80 billion. Fungicides are widely used to protect crops and promote yield, but research published in the Phytobiomes Journal suggests we may be overlooking a hidden cost: the loss of beneficial fungi essential to plant health.

A research team led by Briana Whitaker, a research microbiologist, and Joseph Opoku, a research plant pathologist, with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, in collaboration with Nathan Kleczewski (Syngenta Biologicals), investigated how foliar fungicides influence the foliar fungal endophyte community—the fungi that live within corn leaf tissue without causing disease.