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ALERT: Soybean rust active again on kudzu in northern Florida
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By Marilyn Cummins, Editor
StopSoybeanRust.com
5/17/2006 1 p.m. CST -- Florida officials today are reporting that they once again have positive finds of soybean rust on kudzu in the northern part of the state.
"We have had several days of rain after a prolonged dry period, and we expect the disease to continue to increase if the rains continue," the state commentary on www.sbrusa.net said. "We also are having higher humidity and a lot of dew, which will encourage disease as well.
"The kudzu canopy is fully developed but not flowering yet. All of the soybean sentinel plots are still negative, with a few plots having the MGIII starting to bloom (R1), which is supposed to be when the plants become more susceptible to rust."
These findings match with the prediction Florida rust officials made in their last commentary 9 days ago, when after unusually dry weather for weeks, the climate was getting back to normal.
On May 8, they said they had "recently had several rainy days with high humidity and lots of dew. If rust is still present, we should start seeing new infections in a week or so."
Several dry weeks since the middle of February had caused the rust, known to have been present in 11 Florida counties this year, to go dormant. Officials reported they had not been able to find soybean rust in north Florida in recent weeks, and no new counties with rust were listed with today's report.
Soybean rust was confirmed on kudzu in Alachua, Duval, Gadsden, Hernando, Hillsborough, Lee, Leon, Marion, Miami-Dade, Pasco and Polk counties in Florida in 2006, with seven of the 10 finds reported on Jan. 17; one on Jan. 20 (Marion) and the most recent on Feb. 13 in Miami-Dade, a full three months ago.
The soybean rust spore transport forecast from the North American Plant Disease Forecast Center has not yet been updated for today, May 17. The May 15 forecast did predict new disease development as infected areas of the Southeast received recent rains, but no transport events that would endanger susceptible plants have yet been forecast this year.
Source: Florida state commentaries on www.sbrusa.net; the NAPDFC Soybean Rust Forecast site.
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