 I'm Farm Director Jamie Dickerman with the NAG News updates. Weather conditions for much of the Corn Belt have been favorable for the development of tar spot. Nick Friederking, an agrigold agronomist based in southern Illinois, explains. We need prolonged leaf wetness for the tar spot pathogen to really take off. There is a latent period, a time of dormancy where we don't see the disease visually, but it is developing within the tissue. And here recently in the last week or two, we have seen tar spot confirmed in Illinois counties.