The 2014 Mississippi Soybean Disease Monitoring Network

Soybean sentinel plot protected with an electrified fence to prevent deer browsing.

Once again in 2014, as we’ve conducted over the past nine years, we will be scouting planted soybean sentinel plots for the presence of soybean rust as well as other important yield-limiting diseases.  The Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board as well as the United Soybean Board have funded the disease monitoring network for the 2014 soybean season.  Soybean sentinel plots have been planted at 21 locations (Adams, Amite, Claiborne, Coahoma, Hancock, Hinds, Holmes, Issaquena, Jackson, Monroe, Newton, Noxubee (2), Pearl River, Tippah, Tishomingo, Walthall, Warren, Washington, Wayne, and Wilkinson counties) with four different soybean Maturity Groups: a 3.9 relative maturity, a 4.7 relative maturity, a 5.6 relative maturity, and a 7.4 relative maturity.  In addition to having the plots in 21 locations, 6 of the locations are surrounded by electrified fence to protect the plots (Adams, Amite, Coahoma, Warren, Wayne, and Wilkinson counties).  Several different Maturity Groups are planted to extend the reproductive maturity window.  Soybean plants are generally more susceptible to foliar diseases once reproductive growth stages begin.

The majority of the disease reporting will be located on the Mississippi Crop Situation Blog using updates made to the Disease Monitoring page.  The page can be located at:

https://www.mississippi-crops.com/disease-monitoring/

or by clicking on the Disease Monitoring tab on the homepage:

In addition to information related to the specific location of soybean rust, a current map presenting the MS counties with strobilurin-resistant frogeye leaf spot will be included for farmers to make informed disease management decisions when choosing a fungicide to manage frogeye leaf spot.  A graduate student (Mr. Jeff Standish) will once again continue to collect leaf samples infected with frogeye leaf spot and continue to monitor for the presence of resistance to the strobilurin class of fungicides.

The future of the ipmPIPE public webpage (www.sbrusa.net)

Ten years ago soybean rust was first identified in the continental United States in a soybean field outside of Baton Rouge, LA.  As a result of the identification of the disease a large collaborative effort was initiated to monitor and track the disease throughout North America as means of protecting the soybean industry.  The soybean monitoring portion of the program was initiated and became the sentinel plot program.  A secondary portion of the effort became known as the Soybean Rust Integrated Pest Management Pest Information Platform for Extension (or SBR ipm-PIPE or SBR-PIPE).  The ipm-PIPE housed the website that was used to disseminate data to the general public.  One of the most important aspects of the website was the location of soybean rust presented at the county resolution (red counties where rust was detected compared to green counties that had been scouted where rust had not been detected).  In addition to the location of the disease observation, management suggestions formulated by each state’s Extension soybean rust coordinator were included to help provide sound management suggestions for farmers.  For the past ten years, university personnel have exclusively uploaded the information to the website.  The information provided on the website was a result of the sentinel plot monitoring system that was initially funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (APHIS and RMA) as well as numerous soybean board check-off funds from either the state promotion boards or the United Soybean Board (USB) or the North Center Soybean Research Project (NCSRP).  Federal funding for the program ended during 2009 and since that time state promotion boards, the USB, and/or the North Central Soybean Research Program (NCSRP) have funded the entire sentinel plot monitoring program.  However, the funding to support the development and maintenance of the reporting website ended during 2010.  Since that time a scaled back effort has been maintained to support the internet platform.  In addition to the website having the ability to report the location of yield-limiting disease and management suggestions, a “restricted” portion of the website allowed university personnel with a passcode to look at the potential future path of the disease through model-based simulations.  The simulations used the wind patterns over a given period of time to present the information on a map using locations where soybean rust had previously been observed.  Needless to say, the restricted website contained some extremely powerful tools that substantially aided scouting efforts.

In 2015 the hosting of the soybean rust internet web platform will shift from an unbiased source of information to a web-based platform that in all likelihood will be funded exclusively by private companies.  Essentially, with that shift, reporting of disease observations will no longer remain solely in the hands of a state’s Extension coordinator.  As it stands, the shift from what we now know as the ipmPIPE, to what will be known as the iPiPE will likely occur at the beginning of 2015.  Personnel with the ability to log onto the site will have the same tools available that I’ve relied on for the last 7 years to aid in scouting for soybean rust as well as numerous other diseases that will be included in the predictive model simulations (future mapping simulations).