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Farmers still worried about soybean rust

By JIM PAUL
THE Associated Press

Sunday, August 21, 2005 12:39 AM CDT

URBANA - Midwestern soybean fields likely won't be affected by Asian soybean rust this year, but at least one Illinois farmer isn't about to forget about a fungus that can kill whole fields if left untreated.

"The disease can do so much damage in central Illinois that we have to be wary every year," said Jeff Abbey, who grows about 800 acres of soybeans near Cropsey northeast of Bloomington. "Just because we didn't have it this year - yet - means nothing about next week or next year."

The fungus has been confined to southern states this summer with no confirmed sightings north of Atlanta. Still, because rust is infecting soybeans in Georgia, Florida, South

Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi, it likely will survive another winter in the South. That means it could easily spread northward next year if weather conditions are right, said Susanne Bissonnette, a soybean rust expert with University of Illinois Extension.

Soybean rust causes premature leaf loss, leading to fewer bean pods, fewer seeds per pod and early maturity, all of which adds up to lost crop yield. It moved northward from South America into the southern United States late last year, so scientists are still learning about how it travels.

The disease still could show up in northern states this year but most of the crop has matured beyond the point where farmers would have to spray expensive fungicides to protect their yields, said Glen Hartman, a plant pathologist at the National Soybean Research Laboratory on the University of Illinois campus.

"We don't really know the exact reasons why it didn't balloon out and spread faster and farther," Hartman said. "Since June 15, there's been a new county sighted every two days in the South."

Part of the reason the fungus has been confined to the South this year may be because it survived only in Florida last winter. Prevailing winds from Florida often travel in a northeasterly direction, meaning rust spores didn't get into the air currents that would have taken them into the Midwest, Hartman said.

"If the epidemic would have started in Louisiana or the bottom part of the Mississippi Valley, I think there would have been more chance for it to move up," he said.

Since it was first spotted in this country last year, preparations for finding, tracking and battling the disease have been unprecedented. Government and the agriculture industry spent millions of dollars to provide information to farmers and train them to scout for rust, Web sites were created and researchers from Florida to North Dakota planted sentinel plots, special fields that are closely monitored to help track the fungus.

"I don't remember any other (crop) disease in history where we've had so much interest and training ahead of time," Hartman said.

That's just fine with Rick Rogers, who farms about 1,800 acres near Paxton.

"This is a new disease and you've got to stay ahead of it," he said. "I think the more information you have at this point, the better."

Still, farmers will worry about soybean rust.

"We're all a bit uneasy because we don't want to be the first place it's found," Abbey said. "We don't want to be that first field."