05/09/05 WSU discovery has relavence to soy rust

05/09/05 WSU discovery has relavence to soy rust

Washington Ag May 9, 2005 Promising lab results by researchers at Washington State University and the USDA's Agricultural Research Service show the herbicide glyphosate has activity on suppressing Asian soybean rust. The rust is a newly arrived threat to U.S. soybean production. Washington State University spring wheat breeder Kim Kidwell and colleagues had first found that glyphosate suppressed stripe rust in wheat while working on Roundup Ready wheat. Experiments were then conducted at a USDA bio-containment facility in Maryland where glyphosate was found to suppress Asian soybean rust on glyphosate resistant soybeans in the lab. Since WSU doesn't focus on soybean research, Kidwell says it's for others to move discovery forward. Kidwell: "Our intention is to get it out there so that people in industry and ag universities that do research with soybeans may be able to design some studies to further investigate this, because at this point all we know is that we saw reduced activity with soy rust on glyphosate treated glyphosate resistant soybeans. Where it goes from there is almost who knows at this point." WSU has applied for U.S. and international patent protection on the discovery. The research was funded by a USDA Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grant and WSU. I'm Bob Hoff.
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