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Marois of FL says disease triangle in place for robust rust development
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By Marilyn Cummins, Editor
StopSoybeanRust.com
5/17/2006 2:15 p.m. CST –- The soybean rust found growing in Florida today is in a place familiar to Jim Marois -– the same nearby kudzu patch in Gadsden County where it was found in January, again in March and now taking off for real in May.
“This is a sign that soybean rust has overwintered in the panhandle this year,” said Marois, professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida based in at a center Gadsden County. “When the kudzu leaves were burned back by frost, the vines were still OK, and as soon as new leaves came out again, they were infected.
“We likely had leaves there all winter,” he said, in underpasses and other protected places. Green kudzu leaves are everywhere in the area now, after being slowed only somewhat by two freezes in February and dry weather since.
“We’re probably starting the epidemic,” Marois said, because the three sides of the disease triangle are all in one place now that the weather has turned rainy with continued high humidity.
“We’ve got the pathogen, the host and the conducive environment. We’ve touched all the bases.”
The situation has come earlier to the Florida panhandle than it did last year, Marois said, but where it goes from here is a guess. “The crystal ball is very cloudy.”
Thomas Keever, whose job it is to turn models into the closest thing to a crystal ball at the North American Plant Disease Forecast Center in North Carolina, said today that this first sign of revitalization may have an impact on his new forecasts of rust spore movement.
“If rust is starting to revitalize with recent favorable weather along the Gulf Coast, the sources might have enough inoculant to put out airborne spores,” Keever said. “Then the opportunity is going to increase for potential transport to other areas beyond the local rust sources.”
For weeks, the NAPDFC forecast has stayed on low risk to susceptible plants due to weak disease sources and dry weather. Keever’s been waiting for just such a change as today’s news, but it doesn’t mean the risk will increase immediately. He plans to do a disease update on the site tomorrow.
Back in Florida, Marois had a message for those who've advocated “eradication” of rust-infected host plants. Come visit him at the North Florida Research and Education Center where he’s based in Gadsden County.
“We’ve got kudzu everywhere,” he said. “If we could get rid of it, we would have long ago.
“It’s a beast – it jumps over ravines and grows in places you can’t get to. Once it covers the ground, you don’t know what’s under there.”
What he and the other state specialists and scouts do know this year is what soybean rust on kudzu looks like.
“I’ve look at it every day for a year now,” Marois said. “We’re better at detecting it this year, and that’s coming into play, too,” as soybean rust appears to be ramping up again.
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