Management and Control
Disease control options for ASR are limited. Rust descends in clouds of spores across the countryside. Cultural practices such as row spacing and crop rotations have little effect. Resistant cultivars do not exist. When weather and disease infection conditions are favorable, the occurrence of ASR can be widespread. Thus, remedial control measures—using fungicides as protective sprays—are the only effective disease control method.
Synthetic fungicides are the primary disease control option for protection against Asian soybean rust. The cost of spraying is estimated to be about $15 to $20 per acre; however, two or three sprays may be needed over the course of the growing season. These are significant additional production costs for soybean growers.
Fungicide screening trials to determine disease control efficacy have been field conducted in South America and South Africa. These reports are available on the Web through USDA's Integrated Pest Management Information Centers. These research trials form the basis for fungicidal recommendations in the U.S.
In some regions, the selection of winter cover crops and forage legumes may be effected, since they can serve as host plants. Resistant soybean varieties are not yet available. However, resistance genes have been identified and host resistance is expected to be an effective, long-term solution for soybean rust. Until resistant commercial varieties are in place, the management of rust depends on judicious use of fungicides.
When untreated, soybean rust, causes yield losses due to premature defoliation, fewer seeds per pod and decreased number of filled pods per plant.
Read more about this topic: Asian Soybean Rust
Famous quotes containing the words management and/or control:
“This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management of external things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)