"USDA-Agricultural Research Service plant pathologist Monte Miles warns farmers not to be apathetic. Never in history have we been so prepared for a disease before it was present,' he says. 'Was it all hype-nope. It started slow in Brazil, too, and this year we learned how much of a role weather plays in this disease."
"There is apathy out there among farmers with regard to rust. Those who missed experiencing the disease now seem to think the threat was overblown and that it will never reach them in a big way. That's dangerous thinking. Don't underestimate this disease,' (Don Hershman, University of Kentucky plant pathologist) warns. 'The book is just starting to be written."
"(Greg Shaner, Plant Pathologist at Purdue University) is quick to point out that he is not ready to write off the threat of soybean rust. "I think it is too early to write this off; there is still a lot we don't know,' he said. He cautions that this year may have been a fluke and that rust may yet pose a threat to Midwest growers. He calls for more study and more experience with the disease before any conclusions can be drawn. He believes it will take another 2 or 3 years before we have enough information to make some definite assertions about how soybean rust will act in the US."
"It stopped right at our door. We need to keep up the watch,' says David Holshouser, a soybean specialist with Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Suffolk, VA, (who puts) the odds at 50-50 that the disease will come to Virginia."
"There are currently no rust-resistant or tolerant
soybean varieties. Research is ongoing, but such varieties still are 5 to 10
years away. Fungicide treatments currently represent the only option for
containing soybean rust by lessening the spread of spores. Fungicide use in
other countries has been effective in keeping soybean rust below the economic
threshold of yield loss."
ASA President and Missouri soybean producer
(Quoted in American Soybean Association news release, 11-10-04)
"We’ve been working for nearly two years … on the response we should be taking. Management plans are more important. Intensive surveillance and judicious use of fungicides in the right place at the right time."
APHIS Deputy Administrator of Plant Protection and Quarantine
(Quoted on Agriculture Online, 11-11-04)