Temporal Progress and Spatial Patterns of Northern Corn Leaf Blight in Corn Fields in China

Abstract

Northern corn leaf blight (NCLB), caused by Exserohilum turcicum, is a devastating disease of corn in China. To enhance our understanding of NCLB epidemiology, the temporal progress and spatial patterns of NCLB were investigated. A susceptible corn cultivar, Xianyu 335, was planted in a field in Beijing in 2016 and 2017. Leaf lesions of NCLB on each plant were counted twice a week during the growing seasons. In addition, temporal disease progress was monitored for 8 weeks in three commercial corn fields in each of Yanqing, Miyun, Daxing, and Haidian Districts of Beijing in 2017, and the spatial patterns of diseased plants and NCLB lesion counts per plant were assessed in three commercial corn fields with moderate to high NCLB incidence in Yanqing District. The results demonstrated that a logistic model was the most appropriate to describe the temporal progress of NCLB incidence. The initial disease incidence was the key factor affecting disease epidemics under various conditions in the four districts of Beijing during the study. The higher the initial incidence of NCLB, the higher the final incidence. Thus, the earlier in the season NCLB incidence attained 1%, the higher was the final disease incidence. Greater than 1.0 variance-to-mean ratios suggested that the leaf lesions of NCLB tended to be aggregated on a plant. According to results from join-counts, variance of moving window averages, and semivariogram analysis, diseased corn plants and lesion numbers on each plant were aggregated in the field. The clustered pattern of NCLB lesions and infected plants suggested that conidia produced locally on diseased plants were important for disease spread within the field. The aggregated pattern of diseased plants suggested that plants should be sampled from more sites in a field to accurately estimate incidence of NCLB.