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 Let me put it like this: my dog is a living thing that I care
for deeply. As he cannot talk, I am the only one who can
advocate for him and his wellbeing. Just because my dog is
getting old (he’s 10.5 but has had a number of serious health
problems thus far in life), doesn’t mean I stop paying attention
to him or stop caring for him. I will take care of him and do
everything I can to help him live a long and happy life, with
hopes of catching any additional ailments in a timely manner so
that we can determine a management plan going forward.
The same is true for your soybeans. Sure, you’re not necessarily
emotionally invested in your soybeans. But you certainly are
financially invested in a major way. And your soybeans cannot
pick up a phone and tell you when things are going awry in the
field. You are the only one that can advocate for the health and
yield of your soybean plants.
Where am I going with this? Well, I want to tell you the
importance of continued vigilance of your soybeans throughout
the growing season and how it can help you be an advocate for
your future yield potential in that field.
You see, back in 2020 I spent a few months traveling to and from
campus twice a week to lend a hand at the University of Illinois
Plant Clinic. Why? Well, simply put, diagnosing plant problems
and coming up with management plans for clients is one of my
favorite things to do as a plant doctor. The months in which I
went to help at the Plant Clinic were from August to November
and I noticed something kind of funny.
We were getting a lot of dead plants. Like, completely dead.
These soybean plants were not representative of entire fields
but rather representative of patches observed in fields that had
prematurely died/matured. “What’s the problem with that?”, you
might ask. The Plant Clinic is in the business of plant
doctoring, not plant autopsies. Yes, we can look at a dead plant
and tell you what pathogens are present, but there is a catch. A
lot of the late-season soybean diseases are caused by pathogens
that take advantage of plants that are already fighting against
other pathogens, which can mask what initially caused the plant
problem.
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For example, let’s say that maybe there was a patch
or patches in a field that developed symptoms of sudden death
syndrome (SDS, caused by Fusarium viguliforme), but the patches go
unnoticed. As time continues, the symptom severity on plants within
these patches gets worse and the plant defenses are already pushed
to the limit.
Now other late-season pathogens can come in an
colonize these plants. Now, it’s difficult not to notice a dead
patch of plants in a field, so you see these plants and decide to
send a sample to the plant clinic. However, by this time, the plants
have already defoliated, and stems are senescing. Making an SDS
diagnosis in this scenario is nearly impossible unless there are
blue sporulating structures of F. virguliforme on the roots.
So, all a diagnostician can do is look at what pathogens are
currently on the plant. Common late-season soybean
diseases/pathogens include stem canker (Diaporthe spp.), pod and
stem blight (Diaporthe sojae), anthracnose stem blight (Colletotrichum
spp.), charcoal rot (Macrophomina spp). and more. The biggest issue
in this case is that the grower will not know what caused the plants
to be sick initially and is therefore unable to plan accordingly for
the future.
So don’t stop being the only advocate that your crops have as the
growing season goes past the midway point in the season. Knowing
what diseases affect your beans this year garners you with more
capability to make plans to protect future yield from your fields.
[SOURCE: Chelsea Harbach, Commercial
Agriculture Educator, University of Illinois Extension]
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