06/22/05 Stripe rust concerns now for spring wheat

Stripe rust showed up in Power and Bannock County dryland winter wheat fields but the University of Idaho's Ed Souza says it's not to a point where growers will suffer big economic losses. SOUZA "Parts of Washington and California where the disease is very heavy compared to the type of disease pressure that they see this is really very mild. Clearly our main concern right now has shifted from winter wheat over to spring wheat because they have the longer exposure now." Souza says those fields need to be scouted and possibly treated because some varieties are more susceptible to stripe rust than others. SOUZA "Jubilee spring wheat's are probably more susceptible than others. A variety that's grown for specialty use Classic is quite susceptible so that's another variety that we'd be worried about." The disturbing part of this is that the stripe rust infected wheat strains that were supposed to be disease resistant. SOUZA "The races change very quickly. It's just important I think when the conditions are right for the disease to develop to watch your fields and we've clearly had that. This year it's been cool and wet and the conditions are right for the disease to develop." The best guess now is that this may be a one-year problem and that weather conditions next fall and spring may be more normal, lessening the chance the disease will return. Today's Idaho Ag News B