November 14, 2005

Two new soybean rust cases in US'Alabama

Two Alabama counties have been added to the growing number of localities confirmed positive for Asian soybean rust, an airborne fungus that can cause severe yield losses.

The discovery was announced overnight by Auburn University professor Ed Sikora via the USDA's official rust Web site.

"Soybean rust was detected on soybeans in Pickens County in west-central Alabama near the border with Mississippi," he reported. "Samples were collected from a few green leaves from plants at the edge of a field that was being harvested. The soybeans were double-cropped after wheat and were treated with a protectant fungicide early in their development."

The second rust discovery, in Greene County, was made in a patch of kudzu.

"Most of the kudzu patch had been damaged by frost, but rust was observed on the few green leaves that remained," said Sikora.

Asian soybean rust has now been found in 31 counties in Alabama; 17 commercial soybean fields, 10 soybean sentinel plots and 14 kudzu patches. The US total now stands at 124 counties, stretching across the Deep South from south-eastern Texas to the North Carolina coast.

"As the growing season has finished or nearly finished in most regions, the threat of rust has diminished," said USDA in a national rust commentary.