This year, many Midwest farmers discovered first-hand the effect of root infection by the fungal pathogen that causes sudden death syndrome (SDS): yield losses of 40 percent were recorded in some fields. But it’s not just SDS that is limiting yield in soybean fields. Wounds caused by soybean cyst nematodes (SCN) and by maturing females [...]

Sudden death syndrome (SDS) is ravaging many Midwest soybean fields. Farmers watched anxiously as low-lying areas of some fields suspiciously turned brown then watched those small areas grow into much larger areas of dying plants. SDS is showing up on a scale not seen since it hit Illinois soybean fields in the early 1990s. This [...]