Low level of stripe rust infection found in winter wheat

Farm and Ranch November 8, 2011 Stripe rust infection was found in volunteer wheat in southern Idaho in October and in volunteer wheat in western Washington last month as well. Xianming Chen with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service at Pullman, reports finding the disease last week in six commercial fields of winter wheat in eastern Washington in the fifteen to 20 fields that were carefully checked. Stripe rust infested fields were found last week in Adams, Lincoln, Whitman and Benton counties.

Chen says in contrast to the hotspots found in Washington a year ago, the rust infection levels and distribution found this fall were much lower. And as he said in a recent interview, just because infection is found in the fall doesn’t necessarily mean rust will be a major problem next spring.

Chen: “Because this rust also needs to survive the winter. This winter weather will be a very determining factor. If we have a very cold winter then the infection of rust will mostly be gone. Then we will have a later starting rust, back to normal conditions not like last year and this year.”

But a warm mild winter could again mean an early start to the rust season next spring.

Chen says there is nothing a winter wheat producer can do this fall except when planning for spring wheat, consider planting stripe rust resistant varieties.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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