02/14/05 Stripe rust could be early

02/14/05 Stripe rust could be early

Farm and Ranch February 14, 2005 Stripe rust has been a problem in the Pacific Northwest the past few years and it could be again in 2005 for susceptible varieties of wheat and barley. That's the word from Xianming Chen, research plant pathologist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service at Pullman. Chen says Oregon State University's Patrick Hayes has already observed stripe rust in fall planted barley in a nursery near Corvallis, so it could make an early appearance this year east of the Cascades. Chen: "We expect in the Pasco, Connell area, south-central Washington we are very likely to see stripe rust in March." Chen says the disease was observed last fall later than it's ever been in the Palouse area. Chen: "We saw stripe rust as late as October 20th. That is quite late in the year. That means that stripe was there before the winter and infected volunteer plants and also early emerged crops." Chen believes the mild winter means the disease will have survived in the plant tissue and will begin producing spores when temperatures warm. Soft white winter wheat varieties have maintained their adult plant resistance to stripe rust but there have been problems in spring wheat, both red and white, and with some hard red winter wheat varieties. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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