April 15, 2025 • 36 mins
Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) may sound like a horror story for soybean growers—and in many ways, it is. In this episode, we unpack the science and the strategy behind beating SDS before it takes hold. Joining us is Daren Mueller, Professor and Extension Plant Pathologist at Iowa State University, who shares expert insights on how this disease operates and what you can do to stay ahead of it.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding what causes SDS and how it spreads
- The link between soybean cyst nematode (SCN) and SDS severity
- Why SDS symptoms often appear late but start early
- The critical role of seed treatments and resistant varieties
- Why crop rotation with corn might not help as much as you think
- Why foliar fungicides don’t work for SDS—and what does
Tune in for practical insights to protect your soybean yields from one of the most devastating diseases in production agriculture.
Disclaimer:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Spilling the Beans, the podcast that
spills the secrets to unlockingyour soybean farm's full
potential.
Every Tuesday, your hosts, billBackus and Jeff Mueller, dive
into expert strategies andinnovative solutions that will
help you boost your yields andmaximize your returns.
Whether you're a seasonedgrower or new to soybean farming
, we're here to help you succeed.
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Spilling the
Beans.
I'm Jeff Mueller.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And I'm Bill Backus.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And thanks again for joining us as we dive into the
world of soybeans, coveringvarious topics and providing
insights to the soybean industry.
Bill, how are you doing today?
It is the middle of April andplanting is going.
How's things in your neck ofthe woods?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Planting's going?
Yeah, exactly, we're gettingsome early beans in the ground
and guys are starting to thinkabout corn.
I think it's a bit too earlyyet, but guys are definitely
starting to think about it.
We got Easter right around thecorner here.
So you know, probably you know,crop insurance dates are here
and ready.
Guys are thinking about it.
So how about you?
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You know, same thing.
You know we've got a little.
You know got some corn that'sgone in already.
Obviously we've had some warmerthan normal temperatures.
You know that.
Then we've usually had, butbeans are starting to break into
just a lot of it's mass chaos,right?
So there are organized chaosMaybe that's the way to say it,
but yeah so.
Or organized chaos, maybethat's the way to say it, but
yeah, it's going.
It's that time of year andwe've got one more, a little bit
(01:28):
few more days, and then EasterBunny shows up and eat and sleep
for a day, and then it's goinguntil fall comes here.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So it's going to be interesting here.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, that kind of brings us into a little bit
about our conversation today.
But we're going to talk aboutwe want to talk about with
sudden death.
We've got a guest that you'regoing to introduce here a little
bit as we go a little bit moreinto sudden death syndrome and
soybeans.
You know, last week we talkedwith Mark Storr, our tech
development representative therein, I believe, out of Ankeny is
where he lives, and we talkedabout PPO and metribuzin on
(02:01):
soybeans and that.
So we, with some herbicidethings, we were talking about
how we're at that point rightnow we're getting planting or
going, and we're going to talkabout sudden death because
that's something that we'reseeing more of as it comes in.
We want to talk more about theinsights of sudden death that
we're seeing syndrome andprevention methods and
management practices tosafeguard our soybean yields.
(02:22):
Excuse me so, if you think aboutit, sudden death and sudden
death syndrome, or sudden deathsyndrome as we call it, is one
of the most damaging plantpathogens.
We have seen it spread a lotmore over here in Nebraska.
It's not even something we eventhought about four years ago,
five years ago, and now it's aquestion that's on a lot of
(02:43):
several farmers' minds as we'regoing into it.
It hasn't always been an issuefor soybean producers in the US
but over the past 25 years, youknow it has steadily become one
of our top concerns in soybeanproduction across the US.
That and white mold together,right.
So we know there's some avenueson sudden death we can work with
, whether it's through seedtreatments or whether it's
through something with afungicide or something in season
(03:06):
or pre-season.
So again, things we need totalk about and go with that.
So, with that being said, Iknow you over in Iowa I always
joke over here in Nebraska youknow you guys get the rain and
we get the dry, so we're thestate that does a lot of the
drought testing on things.
But you know you've had a lotmore consistency maybe is the
(03:26):
right word to say with suddendeath in your soybean fields
than we've had over here to thewest.
So you know, every week we havea little bit of a story time
and you know maybe kind of givea little bit of our listeners
today.
You know kind of maybe a storytime and you know how we want to
dive into this a little bitmore.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, thanks, Jeff.
No, no question, you know.
Sudden death syndrome.
Yeah, yeah, thanks, Jeff.
No, no question, you know,sudden death syndrome has been a
huge topic over the past manymany years.
You know we've both been in this.
You know, well, at 30 yearshere now and again, one of those
things that you know we didn'tfirst see early on and then it
just keeps getting to be moreand more of a concern, more
(04:03):
questions as we get there.
So you've got a lot of historyfields that you look at, you've
got some side hills that guysare concerned about.
You've got some spots where youkind of always have had it.
You know entryways, things likethat, where you're thinking and
then you're like well, I plantmy beans early, we keep planting
beans earlier and earlier andearlier, right, so we've got to
be concerned about that.
Well, I'll just I'm just goingto reference one trial I did
(04:24):
right when you and I firststarted here at BASF.
You know I would have been overin southeast Iowa at Richland,
where I had a trial over therewith and without a levo from a
seed treatment standpoint.
And you know, really it waskind of weird because I planted
the beans on June the 3rd andthey were late.
It was planted into someno-till.
(04:45):
There was some rye cover cropthat was there before and we had
significant sudden deathsyndrome show up late in the
season when we caught thatAugust rain and really just you
know, was how dramatic it was.
I think it was like 17, 18, 19bushels, something like that
difference with and without theAlevo seed treatment was how
dramatic it was.
I think it was like 17, 18, 19bushels, something like that
(05:05):
difference with and without theAlevo seed treatment.
So so just just understandingthat, you know it's not all
about early planted beans.
It's definitely always presentand that's one of the things we
got to be concerned about.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So you know as we as we dig into literally.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know we talk about high yields.
We dig into, we start lookingat roots and we do all that
stuff.
You know we start looking atdiseases.
You know we wanted to bring inour expert here today.
So I've invited we've invitedDarren Mueller.
Darren's a professor andextension plant pathologist at
Iowa State University.
He's also the coordinator ofthe Iowa State Integrated Pest
Management Program.
Darren's main researchinterests involve understanding
(05:37):
the biology and management offield crop diseases.
Darren's also the co-directorof the North Central IPM Center
and the Crop Protection Network.
Darren urges BS from theUniversity of Wisconsin of
Madison in 96, his MS in plantpathology from the University of
Illinois in 99, and his PhD inplant pathology from the
University of Illinois in 2001.
With that I'd like to welcomeDarren Mueller to our podcast.
(06:00):
Darren, welcome.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Hey, welcome, it's great to see you guys.
Yeah, darren, thanks forjoining us today.
Appreciate it.
And phenomenal last name, I maysay.
I'm going to start off with that.
So I always joke aroundwherever there's a pocket of
Germans, you're going to find aMueller of a last name or
pronounced similarly.
So, darren, got a few questionsfor you today.
(06:22):
Thanks for joining us.
Yep, sundeath syndrome that'swhat we're going to talk you
today.
Thanks for joining us.
Sudden death syndrome that'swhat we're going to talk about
today.
Again, it's been more prevalentin like the eye states and it's
been moving farther west, youknow.
So we're going to give a littleinformation to our listeners
today, but you know, in basicterms, really, what is sudden
death syndrome and why are weconcerned about it.
(06:42):
Why should we be concernedabout it as a producer and
something to think about in oursoybean production portfolio
that we're dealing with.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Well, I think your introduction sort of frames in
why you want to deal with it.
It is one of the moredestructive soybean diseases
that's out there.
You have soybean systematodeit's sort of the king of yield
robbers.
But after that I think youmentioned the two big ones,
white mold and sudden deathsyndrome, and you know it's one
(07:12):
of those diseases that even ifyou don't see a lot of foliar
symptoms, you still might get alittle bit of yield loss, and so
it's one of I, as a plantpathologist, I enjoy this, enjoy
this disease, because you knowthere's not really ever an off
year.
Uh, it is a disease that has twophases.
It has the root rot phase andthen it has it produces a toxin
(07:36):
and it produces that foliarsymptom.
That that you, that where itgets his name, uh, later in the
season, and so it's you.
It can hit you in a couple ofdifferent ways, and so I'm
always impressed with fungi andsort of how they try to, you
know, screw around with thethings that we don't want them
to be screwed around with, andit's a really interesting system
(07:57):
.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, there's no question there.
Definitely one of the moreinteresting ones I would totally
agree is you know, as I did alot of my work plant pathology
there as well for my master's atIowa State definitely one that
caught my eyes.
I wanted to really learn moreabout and really understand.
This is definitely one big one,and so if we think about the
conditions, you know SDS Imentioned a couple of those in
the intro, you know.
But what other conditions wouldyou say that SDS kind of
(08:21):
thrives in?
So as we think about theenvironment, we think about what
we're planting into.
Currently, you know when thispodcast airs here.
So what are we kind of goinginto and what conditions will it
thrive in, and then later inthe season, what caused it to
thrive there as well?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, so I think you hit the early planting and I
love your story because weactually did a planting date
study and there's a littlerabbit trail here and you know,
with the hypothesis that as youplant earlier and earlier you
increase your chances of gettingdisease.
And then we had one year thathad, or like, a couple of
(08:56):
locations where our Juneplanting had the most disease,
so just flipped it on its headand so it's.
It really comes down like sothere's two phases.
That root rot phase isimportant and I think that you
will get more root rot if youplant earlier, and I think that
that's pretty well established.
The foliar symptoms is thatthat's the second hurdle and
(09:17):
that's going to depend on thoseheavy rains I call them the SDS
rains in our lab and sotypically in Iowa their end,
iowa, they're, you know, end oflast couple days of July, first
part of August it's reallyreliable You'll get a big heavy
storm coming in and it'll dump,you know, a lot of rain and then
usually you start to see SDSpopping up after that and so
(09:40):
it's, if it's sort of the timingof the growth stage, and then
also heavy rain is flushing upthe toxin and that's what's
causing those symptoms, but Iwould say the other conditions,
and this is one that in Iowa.
I know that we don't reallyconnect this dot Because we did
a survey one time asking farmersdo they rotate crops to manage
(10:00):
SDS, and I think 96% of thefarmers said yes.
And Bill, you guys both knowwhat do you rotate to?
It's corn, yeah, andunfortunately corn is probably
one of the driving factors as towhy we have SDS.
And it's not necessarily youcan't rotate away to corn and
(10:25):
reduce SDS.
In fact the pathogen grows fineon either the corn residue or
the corn roots or corn seed.
We're still teasing out that orjust that microenvironment is
sort of favorable following acornfield, in fact probably more
favorable, excuse me, followinga cornfield than it is
(10:47):
following a soybean field.
Oh, really.
So you could like one way tomanage SDS for all the people
that like soybeans and theSoybean Association is, you know
, to go grow a couple years ofsoybeans and you know if you
have an SDS problem.
So it doesn't help if soybeansjust nematode and a plethora of
other things.
So we won't get into that.
But strictly looking at sdsthat corn residue is is not good
(11:09):
for it.
So, um, yeah, so that'ssomething that, like I always
tell people like it like sort ofcross if, unless you're going
to alfalfa, you're going tosomething that's really outside
of corn-crop, rotation off thatlist.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I wouldn't even thought that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
It makes no sense to me.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
That's our cure-all for soybeans, right For the
disease Just go plant corn,we're all okay, right, well, and
I always tell people that sortof STS is one of those things,
that sort of I think thecorn-soybean rotation actually
is helping it evolve and soyou're sort of saying, well,
it's becoming more of a problemin the last 25 years.
I would make an argument youknow, extend it back even
further.
You know, if you really go backto you know the eighties and
(11:54):
nineties, you know the biggestor eighties.
You know the biggest diseaseswere brown stem rot and stem
canker and things that are stillaround, right, but like once we
once we tightened up thatrotation and you went to just
corn soybean.
Now that favors sds and that'ssort of become the king.
You know stem disease insoybeans because I think that
(12:15):
you know it's, it's evolved,it's figured that out, that
system out yeah, interestingwe'll find a way.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, you know yeah, mother nature's undefeated.
It's like we Yep.
So that brings me to my nextquestion and I'm going to I'm
going to take off a little biton my my main question here.
I'm going to pepper you with acouple of things to take it to
the main one.
The main one wanted to talkabout.
You know, what are some of theman, what are some of the to
(12:46):
help control SDS.
But let me pull back on that alittle bit.
You said a couple things earlier.
You said sudden death syndromeand soybean cyst nematode.
Is there a correlation betweenthe two?
Would be one of my questions tohave, because I've heard that
before.
Secondly, what is the pathogenof sudden death syndrome?
Is it fusarium, is itphytophthora?
I mean, what of sudden deathsyndrome?
Is it uh, fusarium?
Is it uh, phytothera?
(13:06):
I mean, what kind of causes itor what, what's the form from
there?
And then uh, and then yeah, getinto what are some of the
management practices we can lookat or what are some best
management things we can do.
Or, if we know, as a producer,our listeners know we got a
field that has sudden deathsyndrome concerns or it's a
field we've had it in before.
If you are planting soybeans.
(13:29):
What would you do from amanagement options from there to
help minimize the potentialdamage you could see?
So I know there's a lot ofquestions there, but I don't
want to build the pyramid alittle bit from there yeah, yeah
, no, you bet like those aregreat questions, and so we'll
start with what.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
What is causing it?
In the U S it's mostly Fusariumvirgula.
For me, which is uh, andthere's a couple of kissing
cousins of Fusarium that cancause SDS.
Um, there's a new one in inNebraska that they found is
mostly following dry beans, andso it's it's a little bit
different system, and if you getinto South America there's even
(14:04):
a couple of other ones, but 99%of the fungi that, or when you
see an SDS patch, 99% of thetime it's going to be Fusarium
virgula for me.
As far as soybean cyst nematode,again, bill, I think it's
fascinating.
Like you know, the pathogensalways win, nature wins.
(14:25):
Soybean cyst nematode isanother really important
component of this.
It's so this is the number onedisease and for those that I
always tell people whenever Italk about SDS I end up being an
advertisement for figuring outyour soybean cyst nematode
problems in the field too.
Because if they're notconvinced, because it's the
(14:46):
number one disease, soybean cystnematode makes, like the number
two, three, four and fivediseases in soybeans worse at
some level, and that includesSDS and so.
But it's a really interestingsystem and so like, and I could
sort of quiz you guys and try tostump you, but I'll spare you.
(15:07):
But when the soybean cystnematode feeds on the roots,
it's not actually producing awound.
It is producing a wound but thefungus actually doesn't go into
that wound.
And so a lot of times peoplethink well, there's a
correlation.
You know, you have thisnematode that's going in and
chewing on the roots and thefungus is like dang, here's an
(15:28):
entry point into the roots.
This is super easy when youlook microscopically it actually
avoids that area.
And so now you think, why isthere a relationship?
And so it's really hard todiscern this like sort of
scientifically or repeating it.
But essentially what happens iswhen the soybean systematode
(15:49):
feeds on the root it actually isit will send a signal to the
rest of the root telling it toproduce more root hairs or more
lateral roots, and so there'smore, so the root becomes, uh,
has more subsequent growth.
I guess I don't know, even knowwhat the right terms would
(16:09):
essentially be all the fineroots that are being produced.
Well, fusarium's entry pointinto a root system is right at
where there's new lateral rootsbeing formed.
So what we think is happeningis a soybean system until it's
feeding on it, and then it'sactually telling the roots to
produce more lateral roots, andthose lateral roots are the
(16:33):
entry point, or the infectioncord is what we call it for
Fusarium perigloformi, and soit's actually changing the
structure of the root completely.
And so there's this reallyinteresting dynamic that's going
on and we've had several PhDstudents trying to really pick
apart that interaction and lookat electron microscopes and just
(16:53):
like really dorky, nerdy stuffto try to tease that out.
And that's about as far aswe've gotten so far.
But just like it's, it's again,there's a lot of really
interesting stuff there, that'sinteresting.
So yeah, keep building on thatmanagement, like I.
Like one of the things you cando is start with managing your
(17:16):
soybean system and so you knowif you keep that population in
control at some level or you canavoid it even better for the.
You know, out in Nebraskathere's still a couple of
counties that don't have it.
You know that's your best bet.
You know, as far as minimizingthe risk of SDS, sds tends to.
(17:38):
If you follow the movement ofsoybean cyst nematode, sds is
usually just like three to fiveyears behind that movement, and
so it's not.
I'm not saying that that's likeit's on the cyst or there's
anything really you know toonefarious there, but it is a
trend that we see.
Once that soybean cyst nematodepopulation establishes in a
(18:01):
county, then SDS sort of comesin after that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
No, yeah, that's so.
So seed treatments are best.
I haven't gotten into themanagement of SDS.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I'm still on soybeans .
I was just giving you a pause,oh.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I'm sorry I was going to chime in there too, because
as you stop and think about that, darren, the soybean root,
basically the defensivemechanism is to counter by
growing more fine hair roots,right.
So it's defense, putting theshe's staring basically on
offense kind of what it's doing,right.
(18:38):
So it's basically just puttingit, turn it into and it is
allowing's, allowing more entrywounds, if you will, but they're
not wounds or they're openings,because that's where the root
hair is growing.
So it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Now you say that I didn't really thought about it
that way, so that's great allright.
So now that I interrupted, you,go ahead.
Darren, I'll let you keep goingfor management tips from there
if you land on the management ofsds.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
I think you you are fairly limited, I mean you can
mess around with the culturalpractices a little bit, planting
date obviously being one.
I think if you plant earlieryou do increase the risk, but
it's certainly if that raincomes later in the season at a
little bit different timing.
The late planting actuallymight be the worst.
But I think in general, whenyou start looking at the trends
(19:20):
as to when you get those bigrains, that early planting is
setting you up for for moredamage over over the long haul,
but then you're really relyingon that, that rainfall later in
the season.
So then I think that managementreally falls into two
categories resistant varietiesand and seed treatments that are
(19:40):
that are effective against it,and there are several c
treatments that there are acouple that work and there's
several that say they work andthey don't work as well.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So yeah, one thing to add, and then, bill, I'm
turning it over to you becauseum, so we're visual people,
right, we see things.
So a lot of us don't think wehave sudden death syndrome in
our field until we hit August,right, would you call it the SDS
rains.
I think you said you startseeing the foliar or whatever.
(20:10):
Could you just real quickly youknow when does that infection
start on that soybean plant?
It's a lot earlier than peoplethink in that August timeframe.
When does that actually comeinto that plant that you will
have that potential damaginggoing?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
on.
We can detect the pathogen inthe roots usually three days
after planting.
So it is very early on and notnecessarily we don't.
You know we've never connectedthat fungus to toxins later in
the season.
But the earlier you getinfection is also the more
likely that that fungus sets upshop in the vascular tissue.
(20:47):
And that's the difference If itdoes.
That's the difference betweenroot rot and SDS.
You can get fusarium root rotif it just stays in the cortex
or that outer root.
But once it sticks this littleuh mycelia in that vascular
tissue, now it has a, now it hasa pipe up.
You know we're going to shootthat toxin up to the top of the
plant.
(21:08):
So um, yeah, so it's, and andthe earlier it infects, the more
likely it will get into thatvascular tissue yeah, no, very
good, darren.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
so, as we we said here, so seed treatments are one
good tool to use.
And I do get the question a lotafter we see some foliar
symptoms, you know, in thatafter those SDS rains, and say,
hey, can I, can I put afungicide on at R3, r4, r5,
wherever we're at that time?
Can I actually spray a foliarfungicide and help control SDS?
(21:40):
That's the question, yes or no?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
It's a really easy answer.
The answer is no, right,unfortunately, there's.
In fact we've actually lookedat some of the active
ingredients that work as seedtreatments and then we went in
and did an experiment where weapplied them at VE, v1, all the
way up into the R stages, tosort of look at you know if that
(22:05):
active ingredient, thefluopyrin, worked and the seed
treatment worked, the inferroworked and from VC all the way
to R3 had zero effect on SDS.
It was crazy.
It just it turns off Once youget that plant out of the ground
.
You really have to protect thatroot early in the season for
(22:29):
seed treatments to work, or aninfertile.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, and you're playing right into my hand there
because I always talk about.
It's all about the seed andit's all about the roots.
You've just heard me talk.
It's a lot of roots, right.
You've got to understand what'sgoing on underneath that ground
and get those protected.
So this is one of those thingsthat I want to make sure to come
out, because I get thatquestion a lot Can I put a
fungicide on at R3?
And the answer is absolutely noor whatever to control SDS.
(22:53):
We're going to get some otherdiseases here that we're going
to talk about.
That we can definitely do somecontrol there, but definitely
not a sudden death.
So, as you think about managingSDS for future, so we kind of
hit around this.
I just want to kind of run backaround to this.
So what are your thoughts on aswe go?
You know we've got corn soybeanrotation, we're planting early,
we're trying to get biggeryields.
(23:15):
You know all this stuff we'retrying to do to maximize
production.
You know this year, withcommodity prices kind of being
not where we want them, we gotto figure out how to make as
many bushels as we possibly can.
But we also got to think about,you know, next crop we got to
think about the crop after that.
What can we do as we startthinking about that?
So again, I think you said acouple of them, but let's just
kind of rehash that.
What are some best you knowmanagement practices, looking
(23:36):
forward not this year, but downthe road for managing SDS on
your farm?
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean, if you know you have it.
I mean, really do your homework, get in touch with the people
that are selling you thegenetics and pick your best
variety.
And that becomes a little bitmore complicated now that you
don't have an episode here onsoybean systematode.
(24:02):
But the main source ofresistance for soybean cyst
nematode is 88788.
And we're seeing morereproduction with that source of
resistance and so morereproduction means more
nematodes.
So while it might still beprotecting yields a little bit,
it might be setting up for alittle bit more STS.
And so really do your homeworkon your varieties, for you know,
(24:22):
peking versus 88788 and makingsure you're rotating those
wisely to not lose yourresistance to STN.
And then still, so it becomescomplicated.
I always tell people I don'tenvy the decisions that you guys
all have to make.
I get to sit in a room and dorkout and just sort of look at
one slice of the pie.
(24:43):
You know so I.
But yeah, variety selection isfirst and second.
And then, you know, at thispoint we keep evaluating if
there's resistance developingfor for the seed treatments, and
right now we're not seeing it,but that's something always to
be aware of it.
It is one active ingredient andwe want to be the best stewards
(25:04):
of that.
You know the those products, sojust sort of keep that in mind
as well.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah Cool.
Very good, yeah, great.
So we're getting here close tothe end.
So we'll, we'll.
We'll wrap up here real quickly.
And I was just thinking, bill,you know we were talking about
with the PI-88788 and the Pekinggene.
We've got a thing calledNemisphere coming here in a few
years that hopefully we'll.
Maybe we'll see additionalopportunities to help with some
(25:33):
of the issues that we've gotgoing on.
So I've got one more questionand then we'll ask you for any
final comments.
You have to ask question andthen we'll.
We'll ask you for any finalcomments.
You have to ask um, so I'm afarmer and I'm going through my
field and it's harvest time andI notice I've got bad sds or
issues in my field.
Is there any recommendationsfrom a harvesting standpoint?
Because you know, when we'vetalked white mold we talk about,
you know, make sure you makethose the last fields you
(25:55):
harvest and then clean out yourcombine or whatever is there.
Is there anything uh, ourlisteners or can can do to uh,
maybe minimize some of thespread from field to field from
that, or is that really not notsomething that is worth the
effort at harvest time?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
yeah, I, I mean I.
I think your biggest bet atminimizing spread is going to be
your tillage practices.
And so as you get into no-till,you know anything that moves
the soil and you know, you seethe I think the nematologists
coined the term snert the dirton the snow.
You know and you find nematodesin those, and so you know where
(26:34):
it's moving nematodes.
It can also move the pathogen,and so I would say focus on
tillage is probably not the samelevel of concern as far as
field order that I would havewith SDS than I would with white
mold.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Well, we've come to the end ofthe podcast.
Do you have any closingcomments?
Anything you'd like to add thatwe didn't talk about today?
Or, bill, do you have any finalquestions you'd like to ask
Darren before we let him go forthe day?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Sure, Nope, I'll let Darren, go, Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I'll just have one.
I'll throw in one twist to thiswhole story and that is red
crown rot.
And so, as people areidentifying their SDS fields you
know a couple of years ago I'llthrow in also brown stem rot.
But a couple of years ago wehad a lot of brown stem rot in
northern Iowa and a lot ofpeople that don't get out of
their fields and go check themout.
(27:28):
We're calling it SDS and wefigured that out because a lot
of them treated their seeds andthey were complaining that their
product didn't work and it'slike well, you don't even have
the right disease.
But then also Red Crown Rots issort of the new kid on the
block and that has SDS-likesymptoms.
So there's even more motivationto get out and get out of your
(27:51):
truck.
If you see patches, you knowand you're making decisions.
If those patches are going tobe driving your decision for
varieties in the future, thenjust make sure it is SDS,
because there are severallookalikes out there.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's driving by the fieldwith the arm out the window.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
It's okay to stop once in a while or take a step
out in that field and actuallysee what's going on out there.
And we haven't gotten red crownrot yet in Iowa, so I'm hoping
it stays out, but we're lookingfor it.
So every time I see patches, wealways slam on the brakes and
run out there and make sure itis SDS.
Yeah, absolutely so, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Darren, I was going to add then to.
So you did bring up something,so I do have something else to
have.
So, uh, red crown rot.
So we'll probably have you backfor an episode specifically on
that one and we'll probablycompare and contrast maybe that
with the SDS, with brown stamp Ithink that'd be a good future
episode.
So so, real quick, where is ared crown rot found now, just
very quick for our listeners.
(28:49):
Red crown rot found now, justvery quick for our listeners.
And as we do potentially havesome symptoms or something, you
got questions.
Where can they send samples tothat sort?
Speaker 4 (28:58):
of thing.
Yeah, yeah.
So if you are in iowa you sendthem to either me or the
plantain insect diagnosticclinic and we have people in
place ready to look at those.
And we received, you know, 50different fields from last year.
They were all fusarium or acouple of other weird fungi, but
no red crown rot.
(29:19):
Where red crown rot is at rightnow is a lot of Illinois
counties, three or four or maybeeven more in Indiana, a couple
in Western Kentucky and thenlast year they found two, found
it in two counties in Missouri.
So it's, and it's, you know,it's right on the right on that
(29:43):
Ford County.
I think it is in Illinois wherethe sort of the hotspot is is
right on the Missouri borderthere.
It's still not any countiestouching iowa yet, but there's
sure, sure, there's a lot ofconversation.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So yeah, yeah, very good, very good thanks darren.
Thanks, darren appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Have a good one.
You bet have a good one.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Thanks for your time well, bill, we we're a lot on
sds.
Uh, darren, you know they do alot of things there and I guess
a big take-home point I wouldtake of having this during our
conversation is if you don'thave it now, don't think you're
not going to get it, becauseit's probably going to come or
it's probably going to be movinginto your area, right, but we
(30:23):
learned a lot of interestingstuff about Sundance.
There's a couple things he toldme today I was like I never
even knew, didn't even thinkabout it.
Um, so what's kind of a coupletake-home points for our
listeners and a couple thingsyou really learned today that
you thought were reallyinteresting in our, in our, in
our listeners would really liketo understand or list or or know
more about, I guess yeah, yeah,no, really good episode, a lot
(30:45):
of good stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Sgs definitely a challenging pest and, as we
mentioned earlier, you know oneof the top, if not the top,
other than soybean cyst nematodeon this white mold.
But you know I will add anotherstory here at the end.
I got to thinking about thisone.
So you know, as I picked upparts of South Dakota here now
too, and we really in the past,you know, a couple of years have
seen more SDS there as well andI've had more questions on
(31:09):
sudden death up in that neck ofthe woods than what they're used
to.
So it's definitely you knowsomething that, like you said,
if you don't have it, startlooking for it, start
understanding what you have andwhere you're at.
So you know, like Darren'scomment about, you know you got
really two options is selectthat variety, get that figured
out.
You know, first and foremost,you know we do a lot of testing
(31:36):
here at BASF with our Zatavalines and we dig through that
with our plant pathology labdown there in Memphis, tennessee
, with Leon's son down there andhe does a lot of work screening
all varieties for SDS as well,and you know we're doing some
screening as well.
You know local variety screensas well, so those would be fun
to see how those all turn outwith our new stuff.
But as you really, you know,think about that root phase, you
think about the foliar phase,if you will, and you think about
(31:57):
those SDS range I think thatwas kind of a cool term to look
at, you know, on those rootareas, as we talked about that,
just that, you know, allowingmore places for that fusarium
basically to get in there, yeah,it just kind of blows your mind
.
So, and then I would say themisdiagnosis, you know, on the
end there.
So I had a lot of thosequestions too, and I think you
and I, when we did the profarmer tour here a while back
(32:20):
past couple of years, we had alot of people, you know, on that
pro farmer tour talking aboutSDS and you know we made sure
that they heard it that it mayor may not be SDS.
It might have been brown stemrot.
Make sure you identify that.
So I think that was one Acouple of things I thought about
there as well.
So how about yourself?
What did you learn here today?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, I mean, corn fixes everything with soybean
diseases right.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
That's what I always thought.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You know, put corn there and it doesn't like it.
I didn't realize corn actuallymay accentuate issues with
sudden death syndrome.
So I thought that was reallyinteresting.
I thought the root hair thingwas very interesting.
I've always kind of tried topiece together that cyst
nematode and that SDS and Ialways thought open wound sites
too.
But from that standpoint andthen I think a couple of the
realities of it is.
Number one is you know whenthey can find that fusarium
(33:05):
within three days after you'veplanted that soybeans?
It comes early, it's there.
It just going to depend on thetype of year you have whether
it's going to get that fusariumup into the system and it
exhibits it, you know, as sds or, as it stays, as a root rot.
From that standpoint, right.
And then the reality of it isis, once the beans in the ground
(33:27):
, you're not going to haveanything that you can control it
.
Um, and again, I I know there'swith the economics that we have
right now and there's some,there's some opportunities that
some, some producers are lookingat maybe to cut back on some of
the cost of things.
But I've always said, bill, youknow, when we talk seed
treatment on soybeans with, with, with Alevo, it's a no brainer,
(33:48):
it's.
It's worth the money becausethe things it protects and does
and once that seeds in theground, there's no more you can
do for it the rest of the yearand you're just hoping things
don't come to a head.
So I think setting yourself upto minimize those things that
could happen, that's how youmaximize return on investment in
(34:09):
your fields.
So, but no, it was awesomeconversation and you know what
we's how you maximize return oninvestment in your fields.
So, but no, it was awesomeconversation and you know what
we're going to hear from himhere in a couple more weeks when
we're going to talk about alittle bit with FrogEye LeafSpot
.
So that's just a lead into in acouple of weeks from now.
So, with that being said, bill,thanks for joining me again and
thank to all of you for joiningus today on this episode of
Spilling the Beans.
We invite you to download theGrow Smart Live app for more
(34:31):
resources and share this podcastwith other growers.
So for myself and Bill, as wealways like to say, signing off,
make it a great day.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Thanks for joining us on Spilling the Beans, where
every episode gets you one stepcloser to maximizing your
soybean profitability.
If you found today's insightsvaluable, subscribe and leave us
a review on your favoriteplatform.
Download the Grow Smart Liveapp for more resources and share
the podcast with other growers.
See you next week with moreexpert tips to help you grow
(35:02):
smarter and achieve the bestyields yet.
Liberty Outlook.
Zidua Zidua Pro Poncho MotivoPrecise Endura Rivitec.
Fastax CS Elevo.
Zidua Zidua Pro Poncho Motivo.
Precise Endura Rivitec, fastaxCS Elevo.
Vault, ip+, relenia, priaxor,liberty Ultra are registered
trademarks of BASF.
Nemosphere, zorina and Voraxorare trademarks of BASF.
Enlist, enlist One, enlist Duoand Enlist E3 are registered
(35:22):
trademarks of Corteva AgritionsLLC.
The transgenic event in Enliste3 soybeans is jointly developed
and owned by corteva aggritiansllc.
And ms technologies llc.
Citavo is a registeredtrademark of ms technologies and
exclusively distributed by bsf.
All other trademarks are theproperty of their respective
owners and use of any suchtrademark does not imply any
affiliation with or endorsementby its owner always read and
follow label directions beforemixing components.
(35:44):
Always conduct a compatibilityjar test.
Always consult respectiveproduct labels for specific
mixing instructions.
The most restrictive labelapplies.
That's how you.
Fastax CS is a restricted-usepesticide.
Nemasphere, zorina and Voraxorare not registered and not
available for sale.
This information is providedfor educational purposes only
and is not intended to promotethe sale of this product.
Any sale of this product afterregistration is obtained shall
be based solely on theEPA-approved product label and
(36:05):
any claims regarding productsafety and efficacy shall be
addressed solely by the labelregarding product safety and
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The views expressed by BASFemployees and guests are their
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Grossmart is a registeredtrademark of BASF.
Copyright 2025, basfCorporation.
All rights reserved.
Welcome to Spilling the Beans, the podcast that
spills the secrets to unlockingyour soybean farm's full
potential.
Every Tuesday, your hosts, billBackus and Jeff Mueller, dive
into expert strategies andinnovative solutions that will
help you boost your yields andmaximize your returns.
Whether you're a seasonedgrower or new to soybean farming
, we're here to help you succeed.
Let's get started.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Spilling the
Beans.
I'm Jeff Mueller.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And I'm Bill Backus.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And thanks again for joining us as we dive into the
world of soybeans, coveringvarious topics and providing
insights to the soybean industry.
Bill, how are you doing today?
It is the middle of April andplanting is going.
How's things in your neck ofthe woods?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Planting's going?
Yeah, exactly, we're gettingsome early beans in the ground
and guys are starting to thinkabout corn.
I think it's a bit too earlyyet, but guys are definitely
starting to think about it.
We got Easter right around thecorner here.
So you know, probably you know,crop insurance dates are here
and ready.
Guys are thinking about it.
So how about you?
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You know, same thing.
You know we've got a little.
You know got some corn that'sgone in already.
Obviously we've had some warmerthan normal temperatures.
You know that.
Then we've usually had, butbeans are starting to break into
just a lot of it's mass chaos,right?
So there are organized chaosMaybe that's the way to say it,
but yeah so.
Or organized chaos, maybethat's the way to say it, but
yeah, it's going.
It's that time of year andwe've got one more, a little bit
(01:28):
few more days, and then EasterBunny shows up and eat and sleep
for a day, and then it's goinguntil fall comes here.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So it's going to be interesting here.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, that kind of brings us into a little bit
about our conversation today.
But we're going to talk aboutwe want to talk about with
sudden death.
We've got a guest that you'regoing to introduce here a little
bit as we go a little bit moreinto sudden death syndrome and
soybeans.
You know, last week we talkedwith Mark Storr, our tech
development representative therein, I believe, out of Ankeny is
where he lives, and we talkedabout PPO and metribuzin on
(02:01):
soybeans and that.
So we, with some herbicidethings, we were talking about
how we're at that point rightnow we're getting planting or
going, and we're going to talkabout sudden death because
that's something that we'reseeing more of as it comes in.
We want to talk more about theinsights of sudden death that
we're seeing syndrome andprevention methods and
management practices tosafeguard our soybean yields.
(02:22):
Excuse me so, if you think aboutit, sudden death and sudden
death syndrome, or sudden deathsyndrome as we call it, is one
of the most damaging plantpathogens.
We have seen it spread a lotmore over here in Nebraska.
It's not even something we eventhought about four years ago,
five years ago, and now it's aquestion that's on a lot of
(02:43):
several farmers' minds as we'regoing into it.
It hasn't always been an issuefor soybean producers in the US
but over the past 25 years, youknow it has steadily become one
of our top concerns in soybeanproduction across the US.
That and white mold together,right.
So we know there's some avenueson sudden death we can work with
, whether it's through seedtreatments or whether it's
through something with afungicide or something in season
(03:06):
or pre-season.
So again, things we need totalk about and go with that.
So, with that being said, Iknow you over in Iowa I always
joke over here in Nebraska youknow you guys get the rain and
we get the dry, so we're thestate that does a lot of the
drought testing on things.
But you know you've had a lotmore consistency maybe is the
(03:26):
right word to say with suddendeath in your soybean fields
than we've had over here to thewest.
So you know, every week we havea little bit of a story time
and you know maybe kind of givea little bit of our listeners
today.
You know kind of maybe a storytime and you know how we want to
dive into this a little bitmore.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, thanks, Jeff.
No, no question, you know.
Sudden death syndrome.
Yeah, yeah, thanks, Jeff.
No, no question, you know,sudden death syndrome has been a
huge topic over the past manymany years.
You know we've both been in this.
You know, well, at 30 yearshere now and again, one of those
things that you know we didn'tfirst see early on and then it
just keeps getting to be moreand more of a concern, more
(04:03):
questions as we get there.
So you've got a lot of historyfields that you look at, you've
got some side hills that guysare concerned about.
You've got some spots where youkind of always have had it.
You know entryways, things likethat, where you're thinking and
then you're like well, I plantmy beans early, we keep planting
beans earlier and earlier andearlier, right, so we've got to
be concerned about that.
Well, I'll just I'm just goingto reference one trial I did
(04:24):
right when you and I firststarted here at BASF.
You know I would have been overin southeast Iowa at Richland,
where I had a trial over therewith and without a levo from a
seed treatment standpoint.
And you know, really it waskind of weird because I planted
the beans on June the 3rd andthey were late.
It was planted into someno-till.
(04:45):
There was some rye cover cropthat was there before and we had
significant sudden deathsyndrome show up late in the
season when we caught thatAugust rain and really just you
know, was how dramatic it was.
I think it was like 17, 18, 19bushels, something like that
difference with and without theAlevo seed treatment was how
dramatic it was.
I think it was like 17, 18, 19bushels, something like that
(05:05):
difference with and without theAlevo seed treatment.
So so just just understandingthat, you know it's not all
about early planted beans.
It's definitely always presentand that's one of the things we
got to be concerned about.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So you know as we as we dig into literally.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know we talk about high yields.
We dig into, we start lookingat roots and we do all that
stuff.
You know we start looking atdiseases.
You know we wanted to bring inour expert here today.
So I've invited we've invitedDarren Mueller.
Darren's a professor andextension plant pathologist at
Iowa State University.
He's also the coordinator ofthe Iowa State Integrated Pest
Management Program.
Darren's main researchinterests involve understanding
(05:37):
the biology and management offield crop diseases.
Darren's also the co-directorof the North Central IPM Center
and the Crop Protection Network.
Darren urges BS from theUniversity of Wisconsin of
Madison in 96, his MS in plantpathology from the University of
Illinois in 99, and his PhD inplant pathology from the
University of Illinois in 2001.
With that I'd like to welcomeDarren Mueller to our podcast.
(06:00):
Darren, welcome.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Hey, welcome, it's great to see you guys.
Yeah, darren, thanks forjoining us today.
Appreciate it.
And phenomenal last name, I maysay.
I'm going to start off with that.
So I always joke aroundwherever there's a pocket of
Germans, you're going to find aMueller of a last name or
pronounced similarly.
So, darren, got a few questionsfor you today.
(06:22):
Thanks for joining us.
Yep, sundeath syndrome that'swhat we're going to talk you
today.
Thanks for joining us.
Sudden death syndrome that'swhat we're going to talk about
today.
Again, it's been more prevalentin like the eye states and it's
been moving farther west, youknow.
So we're going to give a littleinformation to our listeners
today, but you know, in basicterms, really, what is sudden
death syndrome and why are weconcerned about it.
(06:42):
Why should we be concernedabout it as a producer and
something to think about in oursoybean production portfolio
that we're dealing with.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Well, I think your introduction sort of frames in
why you want to deal with it.
It is one of the moredestructive soybean diseases
that's out there.
You have soybean systematodeit's sort of the king of yield
robbers.
But after that I think youmentioned the two big ones,
white mold and sudden deathsyndrome, and you know it's one
(07:12):
of those diseases that even ifyou don't see a lot of foliar
symptoms, you still might get alittle bit of yield loss, and so
it's one of I, as a plantpathologist, I enjoy this, enjoy
this disease, because you knowthere's not really ever an off
year.
Uh, it is a disease that has twophases.
It has the root rot phase andthen it has it produces a toxin
(07:36):
and it produces that foliarsymptom.
That that you, that where itgets his name, uh, later in the
season, and so it's you.
It can hit you in a couple ofdifferent ways, and so I'm
always impressed with fungi andsort of how they try to, you
know, screw around with thethings that we don't want them
to be screwed around with, andit's a really interesting system
(07:57):
.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, there's no question there.
Definitely one of the moreinteresting ones I would totally
agree is you know, as I did alot of my work plant pathology
there as well for my master's atIowa State definitely one that
caught my eyes.
I wanted to really learn moreabout and really understand.
This is definitely one big one,and so if we think about the
conditions, you know SDS Imentioned a couple of those in
the intro, you know.
But what other conditions wouldyou say that SDS kind of
(08:21):
thrives in?
So as we think about theenvironment, we think about what
we're planting into.
Currently, you know when thispodcast airs here.
So what are we kind of goinginto and what conditions will it
thrive in, and then later inthe season, what caused it to
thrive there as well?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, so I think you hit the early planting and I
love your story because weactually did a planting date
study and there's a littlerabbit trail here and you know,
with the hypothesis that as youplant earlier and earlier you
increase your chances of gettingdisease.
And then we had one year thathad, or like, a couple of
(08:56):
locations where our Juneplanting had the most disease,
so just flipped it on its headand so it's.
It really comes down like sothere's two phases.
That root rot phase isimportant and I think that you
will get more root rot if youplant earlier, and I think that
that's pretty well established.
The foliar symptoms is thatthat's the second hurdle and
(09:17):
that's going to depend on thoseheavy rains I call them the SDS
rains in our lab and sotypically in Iowa their end,
iowa, they're, you know, end oflast couple days of July, first
part of August it's reallyreliable You'll get a big heavy
storm coming in and it'll dump,you know, a lot of rain and then
usually you start to see SDSpopping up after that and so
(09:40):
it's, if it's sort of the timingof the growth stage, and then
also heavy rain is flushing upthe toxin and that's what's
causing those symptoms, but Iwould say the other conditions,
and this is one that in Iowa.
I know that we don't reallyconnect this dot Because we did
a survey one time asking farmersdo they rotate crops to manage
(10:00):
SDS, and I think 96% of thefarmers said yes.
And Bill, you guys both knowwhat do you rotate to?
It's corn, yeah, andunfortunately corn is probably
one of the driving factors as towhy we have SDS.
And it's not necessarily youcan't rotate away to corn and
(10:25):
reduce SDS.
In fact the pathogen grows fineon either the corn residue or
the corn roots or corn seed.
We're still teasing out that orjust that microenvironment is
sort of favorable following acornfield, in fact probably more
favorable, excuse me, followinga cornfield than it is
(10:47):
following a soybean field.
Oh, really.
So you could like one way tomanage SDS for all the people
that like soybeans and theSoybean Association is, you know
, to go grow a couple years ofsoybeans and you know if you
have an SDS problem.
So it doesn't help if soybeansjust nematode and a plethora of
other things.
So we won't get into that.
But strictly looking at sdsthat corn residue is is not good
(11:09):
for it.
So, um, yeah, so that'ssomething that, like I always
tell people like it like sort ofcross if, unless you're going
to alfalfa, you're going tosomething that's really outside
of corn-crop, rotation off thatlist.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I wouldn't even thought that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
It makes no sense to me.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
That's our cure-all for soybeans, right For the
disease Just go plant corn,we're all okay, right, well, and
I always tell people that sortof STS is one of those things,
that sort of I think thecorn-soybean rotation actually
is helping it evolve and soyou're sort of saying, well,
it's becoming more of a problemin the last 25 years.
I would make an argument youknow, extend it back even
further.
You know, if you really go backto you know the eighties and
(11:54):
nineties, you know the biggestor eighties.
You know the biggest diseaseswere brown stem rot and stem
canker and things that are stillaround, right, but like once we
once we tightened up thatrotation and you went to just
corn soybean.
Now that favors sds and that'ssort of become the king.
You know stem disease insoybeans because I think that
(12:15):
you know it's, it's evolved,it's figured that out, that
system out yeah, interestingwe'll find a way.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, you know yeah, mother nature's undefeated.
It's like we Yep.
So that brings me to my nextquestion and I'm going to I'm
going to take off a little biton my my main question here.
I'm going to pepper you with acouple of things to take it to
the main one.
The main one wanted to talkabout.
You know, what are some of theman, what are some of the to
(12:46):
help control SDS.
But let me pull back on that alittle bit.
You said a couple things earlier.
You said sudden death syndromeand soybean cyst nematode.
Is there a correlation betweenthe two?
Would be one of my questions tohave, because I've heard that
before.
Secondly, what is the pathogenof sudden death syndrome?
Is it fusarium, is itphytophthora?
I mean, what of sudden deathsyndrome?
Is it uh, fusarium?
Is it uh, phytothera?
(13:06):
I mean, what kind of causes itor what, what's the form from
there?
And then uh, and then yeah, getinto what are some of the
management practices we can lookat or what are some best
management things we can do.
Or, if we know, as a producer,our listeners know we got a
field that has sudden deathsyndrome concerns or it's a
field we've had it in before.
If you are planting soybeans.
(13:29):
What would you do from amanagement options from there to
help minimize the potentialdamage you could see?
So I know there's a lot ofquestions there, but I don't
want to build the pyramid alittle bit from there yeah, yeah
, no, you bet like those aregreat questions, and so we'll
start with what.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
What is causing it?
In the U S it's mostly Fusariumvirgula.
For me, which is uh, andthere's a couple of kissing
cousins of Fusarium that cancause SDS.
Um, there's a new one in inNebraska that they found is
mostly following dry beans, andso it's it's a little bit
different system, and if you getinto South America there's even
(14:04):
a couple of other ones, but 99%of the fungi that, or when you
see an SDS patch, 99% of thetime it's going to be Fusarium
virgula for me.
As far as soybean cyst nematode,again, bill, I think it's
fascinating.
Like you know, the pathogensalways win, nature wins.
(14:25):
Soybean cyst nematode isanother really important
component of this.
It's so this is the number onedisease and for those that I
always tell people whenever Italk about SDS I end up being an
advertisement for figuring outyour soybean cyst nematode
problems in the field too.
Because if they're notconvinced, because it's the
(14:46):
number one disease, soybean cystnematode makes, like the number
two, three, four and fivediseases in soybeans worse at
some level, and that includesSDS and so.
But it's a really interestingsystem and so like, and I could
sort of quiz you guys and try tostump you, but I'll spare you.
(15:07):
But when the soybean cystnematode feeds on the roots,
it's not actually producing awound.
It is producing a wound but thefungus actually doesn't go into
that wound.
And so a lot of times peoplethink well, there's a
correlation.
You know, you have thisnematode that's going in and
chewing on the roots and thefungus is like dang, here's an
(15:28):
entry point into the roots.
This is super easy when youlook microscopically it actually
avoids that area.
And so now you think, why isthere a relationship?
And so it's really hard todiscern this like sort of
scientifically or repeating it.
But essentially what happens iswhen the soybean systematode
(15:49):
feeds on the root it actually isit will send a signal to the
rest of the root telling it toproduce more root hairs or more
lateral roots, and so there'smore, so the root becomes, uh,
has more subsequent growth.
I guess I don't know, even knowwhat the right terms would
(16:09):
essentially be all the fineroots that are being produced.
Well, fusarium's entry pointinto a root system is right at
where there's new lateral rootsbeing formed.
So what we think is happeningis a soybean system until it's
feeding on it, and then it'sactually telling the roots to
produce more lateral roots, andthose lateral roots are the
(16:33):
entry point, or the infectioncord is what we call it for
Fusarium perigloformi, and soit's actually changing the
structure of the root completely.
And so there's this reallyinteresting dynamic that's going
on and we've had several PhDstudents trying to really pick
apart that interaction and lookat electron microscopes and just
(16:53):
like really dorky, nerdy stuffto try to tease that out.
And that's about as far aswe've gotten so far.
But just like it's, it's again,there's a lot of really
interesting stuff there, that'sinteresting.
So yeah, keep building on thatmanagement, like I.
Like one of the things you cando is start with managing your
(17:16):
soybean system and so you knowif you keep that population in
control at some level or you canavoid it even better for the.
You know, out in Nebraskathere's still a couple of
counties that don't have it.
You know that's your best bet.
You know, as far as minimizingthe risk of SDS, sds tends to.
(17:38):
If you follow the movement ofsoybean cyst nematode, sds is
usually just like three to fiveyears behind that movement, and
so it's not.
I'm not saying that that's likeit's on the cyst or there's
anything really you know toonefarious there, but it is a
trend that we see.
Once that soybean cyst nematodepopulation establishes in a
(18:01):
county, then SDS sort of comesin after that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
No, yeah, that's so.
So seed treatments are best.
I haven't gotten into themanagement of SDS.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I'm still on soybeans .
I was just giving you a pause,oh.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I'm sorry I was going to chime in there too, because
as you stop and think about that, darren, the soybean root,
basically the defensivemechanism is to counter by
growing more fine hair roots,right.
So it's defense, putting theshe's staring basically on
offense kind of what it's doing,right.
(18:38):
So it's basically just puttingit, turn it into and it is
allowing's, allowing more entrywounds, if you will, but they're
not wounds or they're openings,because that's where the root
hair is growing.
So it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Now you say that I didn't really thought about it
that way, so that's great allright.
So now that I interrupted, you,go ahead.
Darren, I'll let you keep goingfor management tips from there
if you land on the management ofsds.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
I think you you are fairly limited, I mean you can
mess around with the culturalpractices a little bit, planting
date obviously being one.
I think if you plant earlieryou do increase the risk, but
it's certainly if that raincomes later in the season at a
little bit different timing.
The late planting actuallymight be the worst.
But I think in general, whenyou start looking at the trends
(19:20):
as to when you get those bigrains, that early planting is
setting you up for for moredamage over over the long haul,
but then you're really relyingon that, that rainfall later in
the season.
So then I think that managementreally falls into two
categories resistant varietiesand and seed treatments that are
(19:40):
that are effective against it,and there are several c
treatments that there are acouple that work and there's
several that say they work andthey don't work as well.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So yeah, one thing to add, and then, bill, I'm
turning it over to you becauseum, so we're visual people,
right, we see things.
So a lot of us don't think wehave sudden death syndrome in
our field until we hit August,right, would you call it the SDS
rains.
I think you said you startseeing the foliar or whatever.
(20:10):
Could you just real quickly youknow when does that infection
start on that soybean plant?
It's a lot earlier than peoplethink in that August timeframe.
When does that actually comeinto that plant that you will
have that potential damaginggoing?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
on.
We can detect the pathogen inthe roots usually three days
after planting.
So it is very early on and notnecessarily we don't.
You know we've never connectedthat fungus to toxins later in
the season.
But the earlier you getinfection is also the more
likely that that fungus sets upshop in the vascular tissue.
(20:47):
And that's the difference If itdoes.
That's the difference betweenroot rot and SDS.
You can get fusarium root rotif it just stays in the cortex
or that outer root.
But once it sticks this littleuh mycelia in that vascular
tissue, now it has a, now it hasa pipe up.
You know we're going to shootthat toxin up to the top of the
plant.
(21:08):
So um, yeah, so it's, and andthe earlier it infects, the more
likely it will get into thatvascular tissue yeah, no, very
good, darren.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
so, as we we said here, so seed treatments are one
good tool to use.
And I do get the question a lotafter we see some foliar
symptoms, you know, in thatafter those SDS rains, and say,
hey, can I, can I put afungicide on at R3, r4, r5,
wherever we're at that time?
Can I actually spray a foliarfungicide and help control SDS?
(21:40):
That's the question, yes or no?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
It's a really easy answer.
The answer is no, right,unfortunately, there's.
In fact we've actually lookedat some of the active
ingredients that work as seedtreatments and then we went in
and did an experiment where weapplied them at VE, v1, all the
way up into the R stages, tosort of look at you know if that
(22:05):
active ingredient, thefluopyrin, worked and the seed
treatment worked, the inferroworked and from VC all the way
to R3 had zero effect on SDS.
It was crazy.
It just it turns off Once youget that plant out of the ground
.
You really have to protect thatroot early in the season for
(22:29):
seed treatments to work, or aninfertile.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, and you're playing right into my hand there
because I always talk about.
It's all about the seed andit's all about the roots.
You've just heard me talk.
It's a lot of roots, right.
You've got to understand what'sgoing on underneath that ground
and get those protected.
So this is one of those thingsthat I want to make sure to come
out, because I get thatquestion a lot Can I put a
fungicide on at R3?
And the answer is absolutely noor whatever to control SDS.
(22:53):
We're going to get some otherdiseases here that we're going
to talk about.
That we can definitely do somecontrol there, but definitely
not a sudden death.
So, as you think about managingSDS for future, so we kind of
hit around this.
I just want to kind of run backaround to this.
So what are your thoughts on aswe go?
You know we've got corn soybeanrotation, we're planting early,
we're trying to get biggeryields.
(23:15):
You know all this stuff we'retrying to do to maximize
production.
You know this year, withcommodity prices kind of being
not where we want them, we gotto figure out how to make as
many bushels as we possibly can.
But we also got to think about,you know, next crop we got to
think about the crop after that.
What can we do as we startthinking about that?
So again, I think you said acouple of them, but let's just
kind of rehash that.
What are some best you knowmanagement practices, looking
(23:36):
forward not this year, but downthe road for managing SDS on
your farm?
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean, if you know you have it.
I mean, really do your homework, get in touch with the people
that are selling you thegenetics and pick your best
variety.
And that becomes a little bitmore complicated now that you
don't have an episode here onsoybean systematode.
(24:02):
But the main source ofresistance for soybean cyst
nematode is 88788.
And we're seeing morereproduction with that source of
resistance and so morereproduction means more
nematodes.
So while it might still beprotecting yields a little bit,
it might be setting up for alittle bit more STS.
And so really do your homeworkon your varieties, for you know,
(24:22):
peking versus 88788 and makingsure you're rotating those
wisely to not lose yourresistance to STN.
And then still, so it becomescomplicated.
I always tell people I don'tenvy the decisions that you guys
all have to make.
I get to sit in a room and dorkout and just sort of look at
one slice of the pie.
(24:43):
You know so I.
But yeah, variety selection isfirst and second.
And then, you know, at thispoint we keep evaluating if
there's resistance developingfor for the seed treatments, and
right now we're not seeing it,but that's something always to
be aware of it.
It is one active ingredient andwe want to be the best stewards
(25:04):
of that.
You know the those products, sojust sort of keep that in mind
as well.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah Cool.
Very good, yeah, great.
So we're getting here close tothe end.
So we'll, we'll.
We'll wrap up here real quickly.
And I was just thinking, bill,you know we were talking about
with the PI-88788 and the Pekinggene.
We've got a thing calledNemisphere coming here in a few
years that hopefully we'll.
Maybe we'll see additionalopportunities to help with some
(25:33):
of the issues that we've gotgoing on.
So I've got one more questionand then we'll ask you for any
final comments.
You have to ask question andthen we'll.
We'll ask you for any finalcomments.
You have to ask um, so I'm afarmer and I'm going through my
field and it's harvest time andI notice I've got bad sds or
issues in my field.
Is there any recommendationsfrom a harvesting standpoint?
Because you know, when we'vetalked white mold we talk about,
you know, make sure you makethose the last fields you
(25:55):
harvest and then clean out yourcombine or whatever is there.
Is there anything uh, ourlisteners or can can do to uh,
maybe minimize some of thespread from field to field from
that, or is that really not notsomething that is worth the
effort at harvest time?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
yeah, I, I mean I.
I think your biggest bet atminimizing spread is going to be
your tillage practices.
And so as you get into no-till,you know anything that moves
the soil and you know, you seethe I think the nematologists
coined the term snert the dirton the snow.
You know and you find nematodesin those, and so you know where
(26:34):
it's moving nematodes.
It can also move the pathogen,and so I would say focus on
tillage is probably not the samelevel of concern as far as
field order that I would havewith SDS than I would with white
mold.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Well, we've come to the end ofthe podcast.
Do you have any closingcomments?
Anything you'd like to add thatwe didn't talk about today?
Or, bill, do you have any finalquestions you'd like to ask
Darren before we let him go forthe day?
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Sure, Nope, I'll let Darren, go, Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I'll just have one.
I'll throw in one twist to thiswhole story and that is red
crown rot.
And so, as people areidentifying their SDS fields you
know a couple of years ago I'llthrow in also brown stem rot.
But a couple of years ago wehad a lot of brown stem rot in
northern Iowa and a lot ofpeople that don't get out of
their fields and go check themout.
(27:28):
We're calling it SDS and wefigured that out because a lot
of them treated their seeds andthey were complaining that their
product didn't work and it'slike well, you don't even have
the right disease.
But then also Red Crown Rots issort of the new kid on the
block and that has SDS-likesymptoms.
So there's even more motivationto get out and get out of your
(27:51):
truck.
If you see patches, you knowand you're making decisions.
If those patches are going tobe driving your decision for
varieties in the future, thenjust make sure it is SDS,
because there are severallookalikes out there.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's driving by the fieldwith the arm out the window.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
It's okay to stop once in a while or take a step
out in that field and actuallysee what's going on out there.
And we haven't gotten red crownrot yet in Iowa, so I'm hoping
it stays out, but we're lookingfor it.
So every time I see patches, wealways slam on the brakes and
run out there and make sure itis SDS.
Yeah, absolutely so, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Darren, I was going to add then to.
So you did bring up something,so I do have something else to
have.
So, uh, red crown rot.
So we'll probably have you backfor an episode specifically on
that one and we'll probablycompare and contrast maybe that
with the SDS, with brown stamp Ithink that'd be a good future
episode.
So so, real quick, where is ared crown rot found now, just
very quick for our listeners.
(28:49):
Red crown rot found now, justvery quick for our listeners.
And as we do potentially havesome symptoms or something, you
got questions.
Where can they send samples tothat sort?
Speaker 4 (28:58):
of thing.
Yeah, yeah.
So if you are in iowa you sendthem to either me or the
plantain insect diagnosticclinic and we have people in
place ready to look at those.
And we received, you know, 50different fields from last year.
They were all fusarium or acouple of other weird fungi, but
no red crown rot.
(29:19):
Where red crown rot is at rightnow is a lot of Illinois
counties, three or four or maybeeven more in Indiana, a couple
in Western Kentucky and thenlast year they found two, found
it in two counties in Missouri.
So it's, and it's, you know,it's right on the right on that
(29:43):
Ford County.
I think it is in Illinois wherethe sort of the hotspot is is
right on the Missouri borderthere.
It's still not any countiestouching iowa yet, but there's
sure, sure, there's a lot ofconversation.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So yeah, yeah, very good, very good thanks darren.
Thanks, darren appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Have a good one.
You bet have a good one.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Thanks for your time well, bill, we we're a lot on
sds.
Uh, darren, you know they do alot of things there and I guess
a big take-home point I wouldtake of having this during our
conversation is if you don'thave it now, don't think you're
not going to get it, becauseit's probably going to come or
it's probably going to be movinginto your area, right, but we
(30:23):
learned a lot of interestingstuff about Sundance.
There's a couple things he toldme today I was like I never
even knew, didn't even thinkabout it.
Um, so what's kind of a coupletake-home points for our
listeners and a couple thingsyou really learned today that
you thought were reallyinteresting in our, in our, in
our listeners would really liketo understand or list or or know
more about, I guess yeah, yeah,no, really good episode, a lot
(30:45):
of good stuff.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Sgs definitely a challenging pest and, as we
mentioned earlier, you know oneof the top, if not the top,
other than soybean cyst nematodeon this white mold.
But you know I will add anotherstory here at the end.
I got to thinking about thisone.
So you know, as I picked upparts of South Dakota here now
too, and we really in the past,you know, a couple of years have
seen more SDS there as well andI've had more questions on
(31:09):
sudden death up in that neck ofthe woods than what they're used
to.
So it's definitely you knowsomething that, like you said,
if you don't have it, startlooking for it, start
understanding what you have andwhere you're at.
So you know, like Darren'scomment about, you know you got
really two options is selectthat variety, get that figured
out.
You know, first and foremost,you know we do a lot of testing
(31:36):
here at BASF with our Zatavalines and we dig through that
with our plant pathology labdown there in Memphis, tennessee
, with Leon's son down there andhe does a lot of work screening
all varieties for SDS as well,and you know we're doing some
screening as well.
You know local variety screensas well, so those would be fun
to see how those all turn outwith our new stuff.
But as you really, you know,think about that root phase, you
think about the foliar phase,if you will, and you think about
(31:57):
those SDS range I think thatwas kind of a cool term to look
at, you know, on those rootareas, as we talked about that,
just that, you know, allowingmore places for that fusarium
basically to get in there, yeah,it just kind of blows your mind
.
So, and then I would say themisdiagnosis, you know, on the
end there.
So I had a lot of thosequestions too, and I think you
and I, when we did the profarmer tour here a while back
(32:20):
past couple of years, we had alot of people, you know, on that
pro farmer tour talking aboutSDS and you know we made sure
that they heard it that it mayor may not be SDS.
It might have been brown stemrot.
Make sure you identify that.
So I think that was one Acouple of things I thought about
there as well.
So how about yourself?
What did you learn here today?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, I mean, corn fixes everything with soybean
diseases right.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
That's what I always thought.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
You know, put corn there and it doesn't like it.
I didn't realize corn actuallymay accentuate issues with
sudden death syndrome.
So I thought that was reallyinteresting.
I thought the root hair thingwas very interesting.
I've always kind of tried topiece together that cyst
nematode and that SDS and Ialways thought open wound sites
too.
But from that standpoint andthen I think a couple of the
realities of it is.
Number one is you know whenthey can find that fusarium
(33:05):
within three days after you'veplanted that soybeans?
It comes early, it's there.
It just going to depend on thetype of year you have whether
it's going to get that fusariumup into the system and it
exhibits it, you know, as sds or, as it stays, as a root rot.
From that standpoint, right.
And then the reality of it isis, once the beans in the ground
(33:27):
, you're not going to haveanything that you can control it
.
Um, and again, I I know there'swith the economics that we have
right now and there's some,there's some opportunities that
some, some producers are lookingat maybe to cut back on some of
the cost of things.
But I've always said, bill, youknow, when we talk seed
treatment on soybeans with, with, with Alevo, it's a no brainer,
(33:48):
it's.
It's worth the money becausethe things it protects and does
and once that seeds in theground, there's no more you can
do for it the rest of the yearand you're just hoping things
don't come to a head.
So I think setting yourself upto minimize those things that
could happen, that's how youmaximize return on investment in
(34:09):
your fields.
So, but no, it was awesomeconversation and you know what
we's how you maximize return oninvestment in your fields.
So, but no, it was awesomeconversation and you know what
we're going to hear from himhere in a couple more weeks when
we're going to talk about alittle bit with FrogEye LeafSpot
.
So that's just a lead into in acouple of weeks from now.
So, with that being said, bill,thanks for joining me again and
thank to all of you for joiningus today on this episode of
Spilling the Beans.
We invite you to download theGrow Smart Live app for more
(34:31):
resources and share this podcastwith other growers.
So for myself and Bill, as wealways like to say, signing off,
make it a great day.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Thanks for joining us on Spilling the Beans, where
every episode gets you one stepcloser to maximizing your
soybean profitability.
If you found today's insightsvaluable, subscribe and leave us
a review on your favoriteplatform.
Download the Grow Smart Liveapp for more resources and share
the podcast with other growers.
See you next week with moreexpert tips to help you grow
(35:02):
smarter and achieve the bestyields yet.
Liberty Outlook.
Zidua Zidua Pro Poncho MotivoPrecise Endura Rivitec.
Fastax CS Elevo.
Zidua Zidua Pro Poncho Motivo.
Precise Endura Rivitec, fastaxCS Elevo.
Vault, ip+, relenia, priaxor,liberty Ultra are registered
trademarks of BASF.
Nemosphere, zorina and Voraxorare trademarks of BASF.
Enlist, enlist One, enlist Duoand Enlist E3 are registered
(35:22):
trademarks of Corteva AgritionsLLC.
The transgenic event in Enliste3 soybeans is jointly developed
and owned by corteva aggritiansllc.
And ms technologies llc.
Citavo is a registeredtrademark of ms technologies and
exclusively distributed by bsf.
All other trademarks are theproperty of their respective
owners and use of any suchtrademark does not imply any
affiliation with or endorsementby its owner always read and
follow label directions beforemixing components.
(35:44):
Always conduct a compatibilityjar test.
Always consult respectiveproduct labels for specific
mixing instructions.
The most restrictive labelapplies.
That's how you.
Fastax CS is a restricted-usepesticide.
Nemasphere, zorina and Voraxorare not registered and not
available for sale.
This information is providedfor educational purposes only
and is not intended to promotethe sale of this product.
Any sale of this product afterregistration is obtained shall
be based solely on theEPA-approved product label and
(36:05):
any claims regarding productsafety and efficacy shall be
addressed solely by the labelregarding product safety and
efficacy shall be addressedsolely by the lady.
The views expressed by BASFemployees and guests are their
own and do not necessarilyreflect the views of BASF.
Grossmart is a registeredtrademark of BASF.
Copyright 2025, basfCorporation.
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