USDA unveils soybean rust Web site
Mar 17, 2005 4:43 PM
USDA
has launched an Asian soybean rust Web site to provide soybean farmers with
information and guidance on the disease that was discovered in the Southeast
last November.
The Web
site, located at www.usda.gov/soybeanrust, will be part
of a national soybean rust plant disease surveillance and monitoring network.
It will provide timely information on the extent and severity of soybean rust
outbreaks in the United States, the Caribbean basin and Central America.
"It
will give users up-to-date forecasts on where soybean rust is likely to appear
in the United States, report where the disease exists by county, refer growers
to county Extension agents nationwide, list the National Plant Diagnostic
Networks laboratories and link to other Web sites to give producers effective
disease management options," a USDA spokesman said.
USDA’s
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Cooperative State Research
Education and Extension Service, Risk Management Agency, and the Agricultural
Research Service will work with soybean industry organizations, state
departments of agriculture and research and scientific communities to launch
the Web site.
The
effort is part of the strategic plan USDA implemented in 2002 in anticipation
of a potential soybean rust find in the United States, which established
priorities of protection, detection, response and recovery.
