04/09/08 Experts to pow-wow on soil-borne wheat disease discovery

Farm and Ranch April 9, 2008 A rare wheat disease for the Pacific Northwest has been confirmed in winter wheat in the Mill Creek area near Walla Walla, Washington. Marshal McKinley is one of the McGregor Company agronomists whose investigation led to the discovery of soil-borne wheat mosaic virus. McKinley: "In the past there had been a few cases reported in the last ten years in Oregon in the Willamette Valley and in Umatilla county, but to my knowledge it had not been identified in Washington or Walla Walla county." The disease can cause yield losses up to 20 percent but McKinley estimates only about 25 acres in all are infected. Being soil-borne the disease can't spread very fast either, but that also means it is not going away. McKinley says about the only control option short term is the use of wheat varieties resistant to soil-borne wheat mosaic. However; McKinley: "Being that we have never had a problem with this disease it has never been part of the disease package we have bred for in the lineage of our varieties. It is very possible that some of our varieties do have resistance built in just due to their lineage, their parents coming from the Midwest. But we have never tested for it and don't know what we have on our hands yet." McKinley will be among those joining researchers from Washington State and Oregon State Universities tomorrow to visit infected fields and discuss the situation and where to go in the future. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.