Development of a Soybean Aphid Management Plan for the Southern Region

Executive Summary The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsamura, previously known only in Asia and Australia, was discovered in several North Central states in late summer, 2000. It was detected in 3 locations in Kentucky by early October and now appears poised to invade the Southern Region during the next few growing seasons. In Asia, this pest can cause devastating losses to soybeans with the most serious of those losses occurring in southern Asia to northern Australia -- regions climatically similar to the Southeastern Region of the US. In these areas, uncontrolled aphid feeding can reduce soybean yields by half. The aphid also vectors numerous viruses not heretofore seen in US soybean production and these viruses can reduce yields by another 50%. Further, because some of these viruses are seed-borne and seed-transmitted, the marketability of infected soybeans could be severely impacted if quarantine restrictions are applied. This pest could potentially dramatically alter the economics of soybean production in the Southern Region. Southern growers are completely unprotected from this pest. There are no scouting procedures, no economic decision tools, no registered chemical controls for this aphid and no known alternative controls. It is therefore imperative that management research be initiated immediately. Because Kentucky is the only Southern Region state with established populations, that research should for now be confined to Kentucky. We have assembled a research team combining research and extension expertise in Agricultural Economics, Entomology, and Plant Pathology. This proposal seeks funds to develop and implement a soybean aphid management plan. This plan will include riskadjusted action thresholds, scouting procedures, assessing the effectiveness of biological controls, and an assessment of virus-related risks to soybean production. All components of this plan will be developed and tested under field conditions in farmer-cooperator fields. Finally, so as to minimize crop hazards from incomplete information, the development of this plan will follow a quantitative risk assessment/hazard analysis for critical control point paradigm; an emerging methodology for dealing with multidimensional threats to a production system under uncertainty constraints. The introduction of this paradigm to IPM will be an additional technological contribution of the proposed effort.