Newswise — Soybean growers in Argentina have something in common with their counterparts in some areas of the northern United States: Problems with a plant disease called northern stem canker.
That's why associate professor Thomas Chase, a plant pathologist at South Dakota State University, was asked to Argentina recently to speak at a plant pathology conference. The disease caused major losses in the 1950s in the northern United States and Canada and has re-emerged in recent years, hitting isolated growers hard in states such as South Dakota, where Chase does his research. The disease is an even greater problem in Argentina, Chase said.
Argentina had a related plant disease in soybeans called southern stem canker first. The disease built up to an epidemic in the 1990s, but is now under control due to resistance genes that plant breeders now include in soybean varieties. However, northern stem canker — for which there are no known resistance genes — is still a problem.
“We’re poised to try to put together a bilateral, international project to work on the disease,” Chase said. “There are many possibilities for us to work together to find resistance genes or other ways to manage the disease. If we work together to solve a problem, we solve it for both of us.”
The U.S. soybean production system is supposedly more resilient against northern stem canker because producers rotate soybean and corn from year to year, so this has made the apparent increase in northern stem canker troubling.
Chase’s studies have documented a high degree of susceptibility to the disease in currently deployed varieties as well as severe outbreaks in soybean fields where soybeans have not appeared in recent years in the rotation.
“Down in Argentina those are continuous soybeans on no-till. That’s a very favorable disease environment, and the northern stem canker seems to be increasing down there,” Chase said. “If we could find a resistance gene that could be deployed in varieties down there and up here, that would work for both of us.”
Chase gave an invited presentation for the 2nd Annual Argentine Plant Pathology Congress in Mar del Plata on re-emergence of northern stem canker in the United States.
“One of the things that you can do with international cooperation is to accelerate breeding studies. We could have plots going up here during their winter, and they could have plots going down there during our winter, so you could double-up on progress,” Chase said.
Chase traveled to Argentina in May at the invitation of the Argentine Plant Pathology Society. He met with many graduate students as well as government and university researchers to exchange information and ideas on northern stem canker. These discussions set the stage for attempting to develop an international collaborative research project on northern stem canker.
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