An ISU research team is trying to alleviate fears about crop diseases, like Asian soybean rust, through a new prediction method.

Forrest Nutter, professor of plant pathology, leads the team of researchers developing real-time disease/pest risk maps. He said one of the goals of the project is to be able to tell farm and extension personnel where a particular pathogen is.

“There are three basic modules,” Nutter said. “The first module is where the disease is now. The second module is where the disease is predicted to go. The third module is where the pathogen is thought to be infecting.”

Mark Gleason, professor in plant pathology, is a member of Nutter’s team. His main part in the project is with the disease forecasting models based on weather patterns, he said.

“We use Geographic Information System software to look at the topographic aspects of the land, estimating if one part of the land is wetter than another,” Gleason said. “We develop a map on how long the environment remains wet, which has connections with specific diseases.”

Nutter said they will use atmospheric models to tell farmers about the disease ahead of time.

“If the disease is detected in Missouri, the spores could already be here in Iowa,” Nutter said. “Hopefully this will keep growers from panicking and applying fungicide before it is needed.”

Elwynn Taylor, professor in agronomy, is another team member. He said there are three steps, each of which has several parts to his division of the project.

“The first step is giving a daily state map of where the spores could be,” he said. “The second step is identifying the counties where the weather is suitable for infection. The third step is making a county-by-county map of the state, showing the ‘risk of infection of soy’ over the next two days.”

Gleason said they are trying to develop a system to gauge or measure the economic damage from crop disease as quickly as possible, using state-of-the-art techniques, like GIS.

The team recently received a $900,000 grant to work on the project over a three-year time period.

Nutter said the research is to support the National Plant Diagnostic Network, created in June 2002.

“It’s not just Iowa, this is a national project,” Nutter said. “It’s a project that should’ve been developed years ago.”