The Wisconsin Field Crops Pathology crew spent some time this past week scouting wheat and rating wheat variety trial plots, between planting soybeans and dodging rain storms. Despite the challenging week, the crew was able to get around to several sites and take a look at winter wheat. Wheat ranges from fully emerged flag leaf to emerging heads across the sites visited. As predicted, stripe rust is progressing to epidemic levels on susceptible and moderately susceptible varieties (Fig. 1). We were able to find many plots with stripe rust on the L2 leaf (leaf immediately below the flag leaf) with some varieties already showing 20% or more severity on flag leaves (Fig. 2). We were also able to find many varieties still showing no symptoms of stripe rust. We also have had several reports of disease-free winter wheat across the state. Further inquiry suggests that many did their homework last summer and fall, and chose varieties with excellent stripe rust resistance. This will more than pay for itself this season in fungicide spray savings.  Read more from the following link.

Wisconsin Winter Wheat Disease Update – May 28, 2017 – WISCONSIN FIELD CROPS PATHOLOGY from Badger Plant Doc’s Tweet

Damon Smith, Extension Field Crops Pathologist, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Brian Mueller, Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison