By DEBORAH BEHRENDS
Illinois Correspondent

SHABBONA, Ill. — A look at fields where research is conducted and a presentation by Carl Bradley, University of Illinois plant pathologist, were on the agenda for a recent program at the UoI Northern Illinois Agronomy Research Center in DeKalb County.

“We’ve found head scab (fusariam head blight) in every county, and glume blotch is just about as severe,” Bradley said. “I think your crop (in northern Illinois) is pretty high quality and will be sought after. We had rain when the wheat was flowering down south (in southern Illinois), so there’s a lot of disease.”

He said leaf and stem rust are being seen at fairly low levels in the state. “If it comes late, it may not cause a lot of yield loss. Stem rust is not something to get excited about,” he explained.

He mentioned a strain found in Africa, Ug99, that “we don’t want to get in the U.S. We have no good resistance here now.”

During his presentation, Bradley said fields were surveyed at the soft dough stage the first week in June for head and leaf diseases and the leaves were collected for virus assay. His research also included foliar fungicide trials at research farms in Shabbona, Monmouth, Perry, Urbana, Brownstown, Carbondale and Dixon Springs; integrated management trials in Monmouth, Urbana, Carbondale and Dixon Springs and a variety x fungicide trial in Urbana.

While the disease data has not yet been statistically analyzed and the trials not harvested, Bradley had expectations based on what he’s seen. He expects to see good benefit with fungicides in the southern Illinois trials.

In northern Illinois (Shabbona and Monmouth), where he has seen moderate levels of scab and leaf diseases, there may be some benefit, but likely not as great as the southern trials.

He reinforced to those producers attending that management of wheat diseases requires an integrated approach of crop rotation, use of resistant varieties and application of fungicides. Bradley also offered two websites to assist producers. For information on variety susceptibility, visit http://vt.cropsci.uiuc.edu and for a helpful risk map tool and more, go to www.wheatscab.psu.edu

The program was sponsored by UoI extension and the Illinois Wheat Assoc.