Frogeye leaf spot starts as small dark spots on leaves before getting worse if untreated. Photo provided by Boyd Padgett

Grain crops face any number of hurdles in achieving yields that growers desire. After all, you can’t sell what you can’t grow. When it comes to plant diseases, LSU AgCenter plant pathologists Boyd Padgett, Trey Price and Chien-Yu Huang are fighting to protect producers’ bottom lines across the state.

When it comes to soybeans, Padgett stays busy evaluating varieties entered in AgCenter Official Variety Trials (OVTs) at the Dean Lee research and Extension Center in Alexandria where he is also the site coordinator of wheat OVTs. He also conducts fungicide evaluations on wheat at the Doyle Chambers Central Research Station in Baton Rouge.

Padgett and state soybean specialist David Moseley currently are conducting two trials at these locations: one is treated with fungicide and the other is not. This allows stakeholders to evaluate each variety for the effectiveness of
the fungicide.

Diseases like Cercospora leaf blight have been a bane to soybean farmers in the Midsouth region of the United States for decades. Aerial blight and Fusarium head blight are also harmful diseases that can significantly lower yield.

Every year, Padgett evaluates fungicides — both commercial and experimental — for disease man-agement. He says that his current trials show promising results in managing Cercospora leaf blight and Fusarium head blight in soybeans with a combination of genetic resistance and fungicides, while aerial blight is being controlled by fungicides alone.

“I’m collecting disease data on corn through fungicide and hybrid trials,” he said. “Right now, the soybean is very young, but we just put out a fungicide sorghum trial and are getting ready to assess disease in a hybrid trial.”

Padgett said his wheat trials are completed and that he will soon begin planning for next year on that front.

Padgett’s colleague Price conducts the majority of his work at the Macon Ridge Research Station near Winnsboro, where he studies corn diseases like rust, northern corn leaf blight and Curvularia leaf spot.

Price has three projects that the AgCenter is conducting. In addition to soybeans, he is also re-searching diseases affecting corn and wheat. For the corn project, Price is working in a continuous corn, no-till field, which he says increases the chances of naturally occurring foliar disease.

Compared to the 2023 growing season, which was plagued with drought, Price said last year’s trials dealt with more precipitation, but there was minimal change on the disease front.

“We had more rain in 2024 but very little disease other than Curvularia leaf spot in corn,” Price said. “I also had some frogeye and Cercospora leaf blight in soybean trials.”

A recent AgCenter hire who works out of Baton Rouge, Huang is an assistant professor in the LSU Department of Plant Pathology and Crop Physiology. She specializes in delineating the plant response mechanism in plant-microbe interaction and developing effective and environmentally friendly strategies for crop disease management.