[primer]

My winter wheat has developed an extremely minor rust infection. I spent 30 minutes today scouting a field for rust and managed to find 2 plants in a half mile x 60 foot area(not checking every plant, but being diligent) that each had a few spots of rust forming on a leaf.

The winter wheat is somewhat staggered in its development. Some is finished flowering and slowly filling, and some just went into head in the past day.

Would you spray for the rust at this point? If so, what are my options?

I didn't get fungicide on it this year due to very poor spraying conditions and the varying maturity of all my crops(still have incrop to do on flax).

 

[okpanhandle]

I'm late to the party, but my advice is to spray. My experiences with stripe is that there is no such thing as a "minor" infection. We've been able to ignore leaf rust if it occurs late and not have any major problems, but we thought the same thing the first time stripe rust hit and ended up cutting 80 bushel straw for 20 bushel grain. A little bit of stripe rust goes a long way.

Here, Quilt works, and I think I used Stratego the last time I had to worry about rust. I'm just a little out of the loop right now; I know there are a couple other options, but I can't think of them. We call someone to fly it on.

 

[primer]

I might be confusing stripe and leaf rust. I don't have a large enough sample to know which one it is, that's how minor it is. I searched again yesterday and couldn't find any more of it. I'm going to search again today.

Doesn't Quilt have a 45 day harvest interval? I expect that this will be ready long before then.

 

[okpanhandle]

Google some pics of stripe and leaf rusts, they're fairly distinctive once you get to know them. Leaf rust tends to be more orange, while stripe is more yellow. I don't have labels memorized, either, so take all advice with a grain of salt.

 

[primer]

Google some pics of stripe and leaf rusts, they're fairly distinctive once you get to know them. Leaf rust tends to be more orange, while stripe is more yellow. I don't have labels memorized, either, so take all advice with a grain of salt.

In that case it was definitely leaf rust. My dad and I spent an hour and a half today looking for more. Never found another plant with it. So I think the occurrence is extremely low in these fields.

 

[Dwf1990]

If your already flowering I wouldn't worry about it, but if it's beginning to head out I'd spray it. That stuff spreads fast and as mentioned before it's craZy how much it will cut your yeild

 

[Johnny the Farmer]

What is your weather forecast? And is there a lot of dew in the morning? Have your chemical supplier or company rep take a look. We went from don't spray to do it now, in two days. It was too late for Quilt but we could use Fuse. Made by the same company and it was actually cheaper. Every neighbor I have sprays fungicide on winter wheat. My recommendation is don't talk yourself out of it.

 

[primer]

Forecast is hot and dry for the next week and a half. Possible thunderstorms. We're watching the crop a couple times a day. Still haven't found any more infected plants.

 

[blackhawk35]

two plants in a half mile and your considering spraying ??

 

[primer]

two plants in a half mile and your considering spraying ??

That's why I was asking. I have no idea how fast rust spreads at this stage or what kind of yield it could take this late in the game. I'm in line to produce my beat winter wheat crop ever and it has nothing other than natural resistance at this point. I'll be disappointed if it goes under 60 but have my sights set on 75 to 80.