Soybean Rust Teleconference
Training
The CSREES-funded North Central Integrated
Pest Management Center organized a regional
teleconference training session -- Soybean
Rust: Issues and Facts -- on June 29, 2004
. Five-hundred people spread among 100 sites
in 11 of the 12 north-central US participated
in the conference. They included 321 farmers,
crop consultants and agribusiness personnel
from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota,
Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin,
states accounting for over 9.17 million acres
of total US soybean acreage.
Soybean rust is a serious disease causing
crop losses all over the world, and was first
discovered in the US in 2004, in Louisiana.
It is caused by either of two fungal species,
Phakopsora pachyrhizi, also known as the
Asian species, and Phakopsora meibomiae,
the New World species. It is spread primarily
by wind-borne spores.
The Asian species, the one found in Louisiana,
is the more aggressive of the two species,
causing more damage to soybean plants. The
detection came at a time when most soybeans
had been harvested across the country. As
a result of the harvest, the impact of the
fungus was minimal for 2004. Since the first
discovery soybean rust has been confirmed
in nine states, which include Alabama, Arkansas,
Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri and
South Carolina.
Presenters at the training
session were Drs. Matthew Royer, Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service; Glen
Hartman and Monte Miles, Agricultural Research
Service; X.B. Yang, Chair of the North
Central Technical Committee for Soybean
Rust (NC-504); Kent Smith, Office of Pest
Management Policy ; and David Bell, USDA
Risk Management Agency. The regional session
was recorded and is available for download
as PowerPoint
presentations.
Development of the program was shared across
the region, with the state’s Extension
IPM Coordinators determining their state’s
program point of contact. Each state also
had the opportunity to conduct a state specific
teleconference to discuss their response
plan following the regional teleconference.
The event was planned by Dr. Greg Tylka and Virgil Schmitt, Iowa State University;
Drs. Lisa Behnken, Jim Kurle and Seth Naeve, University of Minnesota; Dr. Roger
Borges, University of Wisconsin; Dr. Dean Malvick and Dave Feltes, University
of Illinois; and Dr. Susan Ratcliffe, North Central IPM Center.
For more information, contact Susan
Ratcliffe, North Central IPM Center,
217-333-9656.
Back to Animal & Plant Biosecurity Home Page |
