Date of Award
12-1-2013
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Plant and Soil Science
First Advisor
Bond, Jason
Abstract
Cercospora sojina, the causal agent of frogeye leaf spot, is an important pathogen of soybean that reduces soybean yield by an average of 9.1 million bushels each year in the United States. Management strategies include using resistant cultivars and fungicide applications. Hill plots were used to evaluate over 600 commercial and public varieties for resistance or susceptibility to C. sojina. Each hill plot was spaced 0.6 m apart, planted with 10 seeds from a single cultivar, and was replicated three times. At flowering, the plants were inoculated by spraying a spore solution across all plants in the field. Hill plots were rated for disease severity at 14, 28 and 35 days after inoculation. There were 259 varieties that were susceptible to FLS, with 181 varieties with intermediate resistance, and 161 resistant varieties. A greenhouse trial evaluated fungicides and their ability to hinder symptom production and the duration of this suppression. Spores of the pathogen were applied at 7, 14 and 21 days after application of fungicides. Disease ratings were collected at 5 weekly intervals following inoculation. The significantly different treatment with the lowest disease ratings was the fungicide Stratego YLD (a strobilurin and triazole mix). The fungicide Tilt was found to be significantly different from all other treatments in the number of lesions on a single tracked leaf, including the non-treated control. These results can be used to recommend to producers available varieties.
Access
This thesis is only available for download to the SIUC community. Current SIUC affiliates may also access this paper off campus by searching Dissertations & Theses @ Southern Illinois University Carbondale from ProQuest. Others should contact the interlibrary loan department of your local library or contact ProQuest's Dissertation Express service.