Kentucky News updated as of September 26 , 2007

• Hello Everyone,
  
  Below is the current map of soybean rust confirmations in the US. I have circled the two new confirmations in Missouri and the one in southern Illinois; our Ballard County find is just below Massac County, IL. There have also been some new finds in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas in the last week or so. There is still no soybean rust reported in Indiana or Tennessee. To be honest, I expect the flood gate” to open up any time. I believe we will have many new finds in numerous states over the next month or so. Then a hard freeze will come and soybean rust will retreat back to the deep southern US.
  
  For your information, we have recently received and checked samples from Adair, Caldwell, Calloway, Carlisle, Fayette, McLean, Oldham, Todd, and Webster Counties and have not found soybean rust. But, I expect that will change soon.
  
  Fortunately, for KY all of this is happening late in the season and there will be no yield impact in any field. I feel quite comfortable saying this. However, all of this activity should remind us that this same level of activity could easily, in some future season, be happening a full month or more earlier. In that scenario, spraying many fields would be entirely necessary. Keep in mind that KY and much of the south was in a drought this year. This almost certainly reduced the potential for soybean rust to build up in the deep South and spread into the north. My main point is to not get complacent about soybean rust. It may take a few years, or even a decade, but eventually soybean rust will move into a major soybean state (or region) and cause a lot of damage to unprotected crops. The question is not if, but when. In the meantime, we are learning a great deal about how soybean rust spreads and develops. I am confident that when the time comes, we will be able to anticipate when soybean rust is likely to graduate to the next level of significance in US soybean production. For now, however, we are good to go.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• News update (September 21, 2007)
• News update (September 18, 2007)
• News update (September 14, 2007)
• News update (September 9, 2007)
• News update (September 7, 2007)
• News update (August 31, 2007)
• News update (August 27, 2007)
• News update (August 23, 2007)
• News update (August 16, 2007)
• News update (August 14, 2007)
• News update (August 13, 2007)
• News update (June 19, 2007)
  
  
• archived news page (through April, 2005)

Trainings

• no soybean rust specific trainings are presently being offered in Kentucky