Brazilian Soybean Pest Management and Threats to Its Sustainability
Introduction
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Brazil is expected to harvest 198.65 million tons of grain in 2014/15 in an area of 57.08 million hectares and soybean stands out as the main crop sown. The cultivated soybean area has nearly tripled in the last 20 years, up from 11.6 million hectares in 1994/95 to 31.3 million hectares in 2014/15 (Conab, 2015). One of the main factors for the success of soybean crop in Brazil was the development of cultivars adapted to low latitudes (up to 00) allowing for the expansion to the Cerrado region (Central Brazil), responsible for more than 50% of soybean production in 2014/15. The agricultural production in Brazil is focused on two regions; the South and the Center-West. The set of distinct geographic regions places the country in a unique situation concerning the management of pests, especially considering the absence of the seasonal break provided by winter in temperate regions. The intensive use of land, absence of crop rotation and increased use of chemical control as the only tool for pest control have threatened the sustainability of the soybean crop in recent years. This article gives a short overview of how the management of pests has changed with the expansion of the soybean crop.
Diseases
Soybean disease problems in Brazil vary amongst regions due to the large array of edaphoclimatic conditions. Breeding programs in Brazil have focused on incorporating disease resistance into their cultivars wherever possible and, as a result, several diseases are no longer an economic threat. For example, frogeye leaf spot (Cercospora sojina) was first identified in Brazil in 1971 and was considered a major disease. Nowadays, the disease is practically absent from the fields due to the incorporation of resistance gene Rcs3 from soybean cultivars Davis and Paraná. Stem canker, caused by Diaporthe phaseolorum var. meridionalis, detected in 1888/89, and bacterial pustule caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. glycines have also been controlled by the introgression of resistance genes into cultivars (Almeida et al., 2005)…….
This is an extract of the full article published in: Outlooks on Pest Management – June 2015 issue.
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Authors: Claudia Viera Godoy, Adeney de Freitas Bueno & Dionisio Luiz Pisa Gazziero – describe pest control strategies in Brazilian soybeans
Category: Agriculture
