What this year's stripe rust may, or may not mean for 2011
Farm and Ranch October 18, 2010 This was a bad year for stripe rust infection in wheat in the Pacific Northwest. Does that have any relevance to what we might see in 2011? Xianming Chen with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service at Pullman says this year’s level of stripe rust means the spore level is quite high which can lead to infection in early planted winter wheat. Chen says the fall infection generally is not a problem but it can have consequences for next spring. What kind of winter we have can be a determining factor. Chen: “If we got a warmer winter, then this next spring the rust will start very early. Then we can have a big problem next year. If we have a colder winter this year, then it reduces much of the rust and next spring it will also start late and may have lighter rust. Now is too early to see.” Chen says Pacific Northwest winters just aren’t cold enough to kill all the stripe rust spores so they are always around. Then it is the spring weather conditions that determine how bad a stripe rust year it will be. And this past spring’s cool, wet weather was highly conducive to development and spread of the disease. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net. ?
