Dr. Scott Monfort
Plant Pathologist

[Scott Monfort standing next to a pickup truck] I’m Scott Monfort, extension plant pathologist with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Today I wanted to update you on the Soybean Rust situation here in the state. [Slide - Soybean Rust; Picture of leaves with soybean rust; Map of the state of Arkansas with county outlines and Chicot County shaded and then the rest of the counties shading up the delta, all but the top four counties in the northeast, with questions marks.] A little over a month ago soybean rust was confirmed in Chicot county and has now spread throughout the delta and has reached most of the counties above I-40 except just a few along the Missouri border. We do, however, suspect the disease is in the counties that we have not yet confirmed in the northeast, however, we just have not been able to find or confirm those locations at this time.

But so far, what we have seen in the confirmed counties is that this disease is building up to very high levels and is spreading quite rapidly through some of the fields that have not been controlled or not had a fungicide applied. [Slide - Soybean Rust; Picture of leaves with soybean rust; Map of the state of Arkansas with county outlines and counties in delta shaded that have been confirmed to have soybean rust. Incidence rate 75% +; 75 / 100 ] In these cases, we are seeing soybean rust incidence as high as 75, or greater, percent. What I mean by that is that we are finding soybean rust on 75 out of 100 leaves.

[Slide - Soybean Rust; Map of the state of Arkansas with county outlines and radar of precipitation; rainy, cloudy, windy, fog/dew] These kind of conditions like we are currently having, a lot of rainfall, extended periods of cloudy conditions, a lot of wind, fog in the morning time or longer dew periods in the morning time, has been the primary reason [Scott Monfort standing next to a pickup truck] we have opened the entire state up into this spray advisory because we think it is important enough that growers at this time consider controlling this disease in their late beans.

There are some cases where you will have soybeans that will not have high yield potential that you may not want to control this disease or it may not pay you to control this disease. We do understand that. But, there is quite a bit of soybeans out there that has pretty decent yield potential, in this case we are estimating 25 bushels or better. We think that it is valuable enough or beneficial enough that these growers will get a response by putting out this fungicide and controlling rust at this time.

For this year, I think we are ahead of the disease, and I think we can put out our fungicides to control the disease and minimize any yield impacts this disease may cause.

If you have any questions regarding soybean rust please don’t hesitate to call me or Cliff Coker or any of the other plant pathologists, and we’ll be more than happy to come to your field or talk to you by phone.

Again, I’m Scott Monfort, extension plant pathologist with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.