WAWG
By Tim Murray
WSU Extension
Dr. Chen, Research Plant Pathologist with the USDA-ARS in Pullman, released his first stripe rust forecast of the season last week and it’s good news for growers, although you might not know that if you just read the first sentence of his summary, which says “The current forecast is that highly susceptible winter wheat varieties would have about 30% yield loss, in the middle of moderate epidemic range (20-40% yield loss).” Producers certainly don’t think a 30% yield loss sounds like good news. However, Dr. Chen’s forecast models are based on yield loss of a highly susceptible variety (PS 279), which is not grown commercially in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). He uses PS 279 because it has been used in PNW stripe rust research for a long time, which allows him to predict the maximum yield loss under current conditions by comparing average temperatures in November and December 2015 to temperatures and yield loss of PS 279 in previous years. Read the rest of the story here.