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Outlook for soybean rust gives farmers plenty to ponder
BRINKLEY, Ark. (AP)--The emergence of soybean rust in the South could devastate the No. 1 crop in Arkansas, farmers were warned at a conference on the fungus.
Arkansas is among nine states where the wind-borne disease has been detected. Agriculture officials believe the rust was blown to the United States by summer hurricanes. Now, farmers are left with trying to find a way to work around the problem by using fungicides.
"You have to figure out what your yield potentials are in your field, how much you can afford to put into fungicides and how much risk you're willing to take," said Monte R. Miles, who works at the University of Illinois Laboratory for Soybean Disease Research. He was among experts on hand at Brinkley Dec. 14 for a conference to address farmers' concerns about the rust.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the fungus could cost the nation $240 million to $2 billion annually.
The fungus, left untreated, would flourish along the Mississippi River. The fungus grows fastest with six hours or more of rain or dew, and temperatures ranging from 59 to 85 degrees.
"Losses are going to be greater in the South and in the Delta than they are in the Midwest," Miles said.
Arkansas is expected to produce 126 million bushels in 2004, 4 percent of the U.S. total.
Production in the nine states where soybean rust has been found is forecast to total 527 million bushels, or 16.7 percent of the nation's output.
No rust has been found in the Midwest.
There are about a dozen fungicides farmers can use, Miles said, but the application has to be carefully timed.
"If you wait to see the disease, you've already taken a yield loss," he said. "In a protective management program, a minimum of two applications should be planned."
Miles said a computer model based on weather patterns should be available in the spring to forecast where the fungus will spread.
"The only way you're going to beat the disease is to use the management practices that maximize the yield out of your field, so that when you put that additional investment in fungicides you've got something worth protecting."
Miles said it will be years before a soybean variety resistant to rust is developed.
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