The Integrated Aerobiology Modeling System applied to the spread of soybean rust into the Ohio River valley during September 2006

Abstract

Soybean rust (Phakopsora pachyrhizi) has recently invaded North America and has the potential to be the most destructive foliar disease of soybean. As part of the response to this threat, the Integrated Aerobiology Modeling System (IAMS) was constructed to forecast the aerial movement of this pathogen from subtropical to middle latitude portions of the continent. IAMS simulations have been conducted daily for the past two growing seasons and integrated with information from a nationwide observation network into a decision support system for soybean farmers. After the 2005 season, the United States Department of Agriculture reported that many millions of United States (U.S.) soybean hectares that would have been treated for soybean rust in 2005 were not due to this decision support system. In 2006, soybean rust appeared for the first time in the major U.S. soybean production region over 1000 km from known areas of inoculum production. IAMS predictions of the geographical extent and timing of disease symptom expression were well matched with subsequent observations of the disease in the field.

Meta-Analysis and Other Approaches for Synthesizing Structured and Unstructured Data in Plant Pathology

“…Rapidly evolving computational resources provide platforms for integrating large-extent data into disease risk mapping. National-level analysis of soybean rust in the United States is a striking example of data integration in near real-time in support of decision making for management (60,61).…”

Crop harvest in Denmark and Central Europe contributes to the local load of airborne <i>Alternaria</i> spore concentrations in Copenhagen

“…Vegetation in agricultural areas is therefore a likely main source of Alternaria spores in many parts of Europe. Studies from the USA have shown that spores from agricultural areas that are infected with soybean rust (P. meibomiae and P. pachyrhizi) have the potential to be transported more than 1000 km under favourable weather conditions (Isard et al, 2005(Isard et al, , 2007. European studies on other aeroallergens have shown that the overall load in a region is typically due to local sources with intermittent long distance transport from remote regions Smith et al, 2008).…”

Early-season warning of soybean rust regional epidemics using El Niño Southern/Oscillation information

“…In the continental United States, SBR forecasts are generated using complex simulation models that integrate biological, geographical and weather data to simulate spatial and temporal soybean rust progress arising from known inoculum sources early during the season (Isard et al 2007). Other efforts in disease risk outlooks include the use of rainfall forecasts from regional climate models for the following 30 or 15 days (combined with observed 15 days) to generate maps outlining areas in the country favorable for epidemic development (Del Ponte and Yang 2006).…”