Soybean diseases are under fire from all directions.
A grant from the Iowa Soybean Promotion Board has enabled plant pathologists and agronomists at Iowa State University and the USDA to attack a range of soybean diseases and develop methods for controlling them. Charlotte Bronson , John Hill and Randy Shoemaker and their research teams are trying to make soybeans that better resist threats like brown stem rot, Phytophthora root and stem rot and soybean mosaic virus. They are coordinating their research with similar work across the country to speed up results. Our long-term objective is to reduce economic losses from soybean diseases. Soybean plants often carry genes for resistance to these diseases, but the genes are not always effective.