Effect of Weather Patterns on Soybean Rust

Weather plays a significant role in the development and spread of Asian Soybean Rust. The United States Department of Agriculture established a soybean rust surveillance, information, and education program to enhance the ability of domestic producers to respond effectively to rust establishment. In Georgia, ASR monitoring efforts led by the University of Georgia include the establishment of sentinel plots and spore traps in several counties across the state. Given the strong interaction between environmental conditions, infection by spores of soybean rust, and spread of this disease in the soybean crop, it is of critical importance to compliment current soybean rust detection efforts with additional weather monitoring as a predictive tool to detect early disease spread. UGA plant pathology is investigating the relationship between weather parameters and the incidence of Asian Soybean Rust. Their goal is to help improve the understanding of the impact of weather variables such as temperature, relative humidity and rainfall on ASR, and how these factors could help explain infection initiation, progression of soybean rust during the growing season and variation in the level of disease incidence from one season to the next. The results showed a positive correlation between the accumulated rust infection days and the incidence of ASR in three soybean cultivars evaluated. Establishing baseline information on the environmental conditions that contribute to the movement of ASR spores and subsequent infection in soybean will allow researchers and Cooperative Extension specialists to better understand the epidemiology of soybean rust.