Video: Charcoal Rot Research Project

Charcoal rot is a soilborne fungal disease that favors hot and dry conditions, like those often found during summers in Mississippi. Tessie Wilkerson, MSPB’s Alan Blaine Fellowship recipient, discusses her research that involves evaluating the addition of micronutrients to soil to reduce the incidence and severity of the charcoal root rot disease in soybean. Wilkerson is conducting the final year of this research, and preliminary results indicate that soil nutrition does influence charcoal rot development and severity, and that rate and timing of nutrient application can influence the expression of this disease. However, supplying nutrients necessary to temper the severity of the disease may only be economical on sites with a known high potential for charcoal rot infection.