The yield-cutting soyabean rust fungus was found in a sentinel plot of soyabeans on the east side of Mobile Bay in Alabama, the second discovery of the fungus on US soyabeans this year, a plant expert said on Friday.
Auburn University professor Ed Sicker said the disease was detected on leaves collected from a soyabean sentinel plant at Fairhope, in Baldwin County, Alabama. Soya rust initially was found in the county on February 20.
"This is the second report of soyabean rust on soyabeans in the United States in 2006," Sicker said on a Web site run by the US Agriculture Department. The other was near West Palm Beach, in Martin County, in southern Florida in mid-June. Sicker said the sample leaves were collected on June 27 from plants in the R5-R6 maturity stage and incubated for two days.
"We observed the pustules and spores typical of this pathogen. A total of five soyabean rust lesions were observed on three leaves," Sicker reported. Leaves were collected from three commercial fields of soyabeans in Baldwin County but no rust was observed, Sicker wrote. The fields ranged from the V4 to V6 development stages.