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Asian rust found in state soybeans
STONEVILLE -- Mississippi State University Extension personnel found Asian soybean rust on soybeans in Mississippi for the first time in 2007 on Aug. 10.
Retired MSU Extension agent Lee Taylor located the disease on soybeans in a sentinel plot in Pearl River County in south Mississippi. Two days later, Tom Allen, MSU Extension plant pathologist for the Delta, found the disease on soybeans in a sentinel plot at Stoneville in Washington County in north Mississippi.
MSU plant pathologist emeritus Billy Moore found rust in a sentinel plot in Hancock County in south Mississippi on August 15. Allen found it that same day in a commercial field in Sunflower County in north Mississippi.
Allen discovered the rust during a routine check of soybean sentinel plots. The Extension Services uses sentinel soybean plots each year to monitor the appearance of soybean rust throughout the state.
“I noticed the characteristic raised lesions on the under sides of the leaves,” Allen said. “After performing a stick test, I received a positive response.”
Extension personnel continue to scout sentinel plots and commercial fields in Mississippi for soybean rust.
The Mississippi Delta region produces more than 80 percent of the state’s soybean crop.
Moore said most of Mississippi’s soybeans are, or soon will be, past the most susceptible stage for soybean rust devastation. Hot daytime temperatures and dry conditions projected over the next week will slow the disease’s progress.
“We’re not too concerned at this point about having found soybean rust in the Mississippi Delta,” Moore said. “What we are concerned about, only if weather conditions change, is our soybeans planted later in the season after the wheat crop.”
Moore said he believes rust infections occurred in Delta during heavy rains and cool temperatures the area received in July.
The Extension Service first found rust in Mississippi in 2007 on kudzu in Wilkinson County in the southwest part of the state on July 12.
For more information, contact your county Extension office. For the latest updates, call the soybean rust hotline at 1-866-641-1847.
Writer: Robert H. Wells
