In the News - May 2009
Wet weather encouraging yield-hurting wheat diseases
LONOKE, Ark. - Weeks of wet weather have increased the chances that wheat
disease will affect yield, plant pathologists with the University of Arkansas
Division of Agriculture said on Monday.
"We were looking at a light to moderate disease year until about two weeks
ago," said Scott Monfort assistant professor-extension plant pathologist based
at the Rice Research and Extension Center at Stuttgart. "The extensive rain
events have pushed diseases like Septoria leaf blotch, powdery mildew, and
Fusarium head blight, also known as wheat scab, typically minor problems, to be
major.
Monfort said the Division of Agriculture is not encouraging growers to apply
fungicide for these problems beyond the flowering stage, due to label
restrictions.
Gene Milus, Division of Agriculture plant pathologist based at Fayetteville,
said there was little growers could do to prevent head blight.
"The only way to have prevented head blight would have been to not plant any
wheat," he said. "All current wheat varieties are more or less susceptible, and
the Fusarium fungi that cause head blight are ubiquitous.
"The absence of long periods of rainy weather after heading stage is the only
thing that limits head blight during most years," he said.
Division personnel will be surveying grower fields in the coming week to
determine the incidence of Fusarium head blight and how much of the crop has
been affected across the state. What they’ve found so far is that fields in the
Arkansas River Valley and the Delta were showing scab from less than 1 percent
to 20 percent of the wheat heads as of two weeks ago.
There is some good news - forecasters are predicting several days of dry
weather, which may help forestall the spread of these diseases.
The Cooperative Extension Service is part of the University of Arkansas
Division of Agriculture.
May 18, 2009
Media Contact: Elizabeth Fortune
Extension Communications Specialist
U of A Division of Agriculture
Cooperative Extension Service
(501) 671-2120
efortune@uaex.edu
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