Fungus threatens state’s wheat yield

LITTLE ROCK — Stripe rust has shown up early in Arkansas’ winter wheat acreage and is spreading quickly, threatening to cut yield substantially.

The fungus first appeared in Cross County in late January and has spread to surrounding counties since then, said Jason Kelley, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture agronomist.

Arkansas farmers planted 520,000 acres of winter wheat this year that will be harvested in June, according to the University of Arkansas. “What’s unusual about this year is it’s showing up quite a bit earlier,” Kelley said in a phone interview Friday.

He said stripe rust is a fungus that gets on the leaves and “can really impact yield.”

Stripe rust is blown in every year from Mexico. Some years, much of the wheat crop is resistant to it, but over time the fungus changes and plants become less resistant to the new strain.

Gene Milus, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Arkansas, wrote in a report that the full impact the rust will have this year won’t be known until May, but that it’s important for wheat farmers to get on the same page.

“This could be a ‘perfect storm’ of a stripe rust epidemic,” he wrote in the re- port published Thursday.

Counties that have stripe rust currently are: Arkansas, Crittenden, Cross, Jefferson, Lee, Lonoke, Prairie, St. Francis and Woodruff.

Kelley said that too much rain and a mild winter has allowed the fungus to spread.

Farmers should scout fields and consider spraying fungicide on them, Kelley said.

He added that some farmers may have to spray again later this year because the stripe rust is hitting so early. Farmers who notice rust “hot spots” should spray, Kelley said.

“That’ll increase the cost of production,” he said. But “a field with stripe rust that doesn’t get sprayed could have yield reduced by 50 percent or more.”

Kelley said that it costs about $7 per acre to spray a wheat field and that an acre can bring in about $370.

Milus said it’s important for farmers to spray fungicide now to prevent the rust from spreading and to allow the wheat to mature and become resistant to the fungus.