**3.2 Bolivia**

Bolivia is the eighth country in soybeans production and is the fourth in the South America, after Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay and is one of the most important and is the successful of the national economy, due to growth in primary production, processing and export during the last fifteen years (CAS, 2008).

In Bolivia, the Asian soybean rust was first detected in the winter crop season of 2003 at Ichilo, City of Yapacani and is currently distributed throughout in all soybean crops of Santa Cruz and affecting the crop of Tarija (Yacuiba). Before the advent of Asian rust, the number of applications of fungicides for control of diseases ranging from 0 to 1, however, today the value has increased from 3 to 5 applications, increasing the costs of fungicides from 10 to 70 US\$ respectively. This disease, year after year is responsible for at least 30 to 50% of loss in total production area, which in economic terms is between US\$100 and US\$150 million witch concerns to the use of agrochemicals and total yield loss per year (Condori, 2009).

In the 2007 winter cropping season the problems to control the rust emerged from a series of technical and climatic factors as (Condori, 2009):


Those factors explain that this season (2007/08) was one of the most catastrophic, mainly in the north and east of the Santa Cruz de La Sierra due to continuous rains that prevented raising the winter planting crop, to perform the planting on summer and, the most important fact, the delay of fungicide applications, generating a "explosion" of the rust, forced farmers to make up 7 applications of fungicides per hectare. The economic losses quantified by the "Asociación de Productores de Oleaginosas y Trigo – ANAPO" (Association of Producers of Oilseeds and Wheat), exceed US\$ 150 million, for the past two seasons (summer 2007/08 and winter 2008) (Condori, 2009).

The Bolivia are implementing the sanitary break in cities located in the Integrated Zone (Andrés Ibáñez Province, Warnes, Ichilo, Sara, Bishop Santiestevan and Guarayos), Expansion Area (Andres Ibanez, Chiquitos, Ñuflo Chavez, Guarayos) of the Santa Cruz state. This project will benefit more than 14,000 small, medium and large producers, of various nationalities and a planting area between the 700,000 to 1,000,000 hectares. Training, dissemination and sharing of technical and legal measures, through different media available as workshops, seminars, television and radio messages is also referred in this project (Condori, 2009).

Fungicides recommended for control of Asian rust are bencimidazoles, triazols, triazol + triazol, triazol + benzimidazol and triazol + estrobilurina products. Those products were chose based on research results conducted by different agricultural companies and research institutions (Condori, 2009).

#### **3.3 Brazil**

482 Soybean Physiology and Biochemistry

The fungicides recommended by Argentina are the strobilurin, triazoles and their mixtures. The decision to apply is at the first signs and/or when was possible to anticipated the diagnosis in the field or when they are found in areas close to their lots and recorded favorable environmental conditions to ensure at least 7-10 hours of wet leaf and average

The Argentina has an official monitoring system that allow to analyze a large number of samples for the detection and disease monitoring through the website

Bolivia is the eighth country in soybeans production and is the fourth in the South America, after Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay and is one of the most important and is the successful of the national economy, due to growth in primary production, processing and export

In Bolivia, the Asian soybean rust was first detected in the winter crop season of 2003 at Ichilo, City of Yapacani and is currently distributed throughout in all soybean crops of Santa Cruz and affecting the crop of Tarija (Yacuiba). Before the advent of Asian rust, the number of applications of fungicides for control of diseases ranging from 0 to 1, however, today the value has increased from 3 to 5 applications, increasing the costs of fungicides from 10 to 70 US\$ respectively. This disease, year after year is responsible for at least 30 to 50% of loss in total production area, which in economic terms is between US\$100 and US\$150 million witch concerns to the use of agrochemicals and total yield loss per year (Condori, 2009). In the 2007 winter cropping season the problems to control the rust emerged from a series of

• Soybean planted between harvests (April-May) generated the Asian rust inoculum that

• The prolonged period of drought and the continuous moisture in the months of August and September stressed cultivation, focusing directly into the beginning of flowering

• The fungicides applied were exposed to critical climatic conditions as high temperatures (30-35°C) and low relative humidity (50-40%) which affected the residual

Those factors explain that this season (2007/08) was one of the most catastrophic, mainly in the north and east of the Santa Cruz de La Sierra due to continuous rains that prevented raising the winter planting crop, to perform the planting on summer and, the most important fact, the delay of fungicide applications, generating a "explosion" of the rust, forced farmers to make up 7 applications of fungicides per hectare. The economic losses quantified by the "Asociación de Productores de Oleaginosas y Trigo – ANAPO" (Association of Producers of Oilseeds and Wheat), exceed US\$ 150 million, for the past two

The Bolivia are implementing the sanitary break in cities located in the Integrated Zone (Andrés Ibáñez Province, Warnes, Ichilo, Sara, Bishop Santiestevan and Guarayos), Expansion Area (Andres Ibanez, Chiquitos, Ñuflo Chavez, Guarayos) of the Santa Cruz state. This project will benefit more than 14,000 small, medium and large producers, of various nationalities and a planting area between the 700,000 to 1,000,000 hectares. Training, dissemination and sharing of technical and legal measures, through different media

infected soybean fields planted in June until early winter season;

• The high level of adoption of fungicide use in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.

temperatures of 22°C.

**3.2 Bolivia** 

"www.sinavimo.gov.ar" (in Espanish).

during the last fifteen years (CAS, 2008).

technical and climatic factors as (Condori, 2009):

effect and effectiveness of their control.

seasons (summer 2007/08 and winter 2008) (Condori, 2009).

that occurred at 65 to 70 days;

Brazil is the second largest producer of soybeans. In the 2006/07 season, the culture occupied an area of 20.69 million hectares, which totaled a production of 58.4 million tons. The United States, the worldwide producer, accounted for the production of 86.77 million tons of soybean. The yield of soybeans in Brazil is 2,823kg per hectares, reaching about 3,000 kg/ha in Mato Grosso, the largest state producer (EMBRAPA, 2011).

The soybean is the crop which has the higher development in Brazil in the last three decades and accounts for 49% of grains area planted in the country. The grain is an essential component in the manufacture of animal feeds and the growing use food is increasing (MAPA, 2011). Data from the Ministry of Development show that soy has a major share of Brazilian exports. In 2006, were US\$ 9.3 billion, representing 6.77% of total exported (EMBRAPA, 2011).

The Asian soybean rust was identified in Brazil in May of 2001 and spread quickly to the main producing regions, becoming a major problem for the national soybean producers. To propose solutions was created in September of 2004, the "Consórsio Antiferrugem - CAF" (Antirust Consortium). The consortium constituents are representative institutions of various soybean segments as foundations, universities, research institutes, representatives of entities of inputs manufacturers and farmer cooperatives. One of the aims of the Consortium is to bring the farmer all available information about the disease and enable him to handle it (Farias, 2009).

The CAF main information and communication vehicle is the consortium website: "www.consorcioantiferrugem.net" (in Portuguese) where the laboratories accredited update information about the disease outbreaks in all producing regions of Brazil during a season. In the system are recorded and presented a map of Brazil, the city of occurrence, date of detection, the fenological phases of culture and type of area (warning unit, commercial field, irrigated area etc). Thus, epidemics of soybean rust have been monitored and the spread of the disease are presented in real time at the consortium website, describing it as the main source of data for the record of events and the spread of the disease in Brazil (Spolti et al., 2009).

When the disease arrives, both farmers and technicians were not prepared to identify soybean rust. Factors such as dry climate, the symptoms likely with other diseases of end of cycle and because it was a new disease in the Americas, their identification was difficult and there was no species resistant to fungus attack (Constamilan, 2002 (2005)). It is estimated that over 60% of soya production in Brazil has been contaminated in the season of 2001/02, causing grains losses estimated at 569.2 thousand of tons or the equivalent of US\$ 125.5 million (US\$ 220.50/t) (Yorinori, 2004).

In the season 2002/03, the occurrence was different from the last season. In localities where the disease was severe in 2001/02, the high temperatures prevented, despite the high amount of rain, the development of the disease, except in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, where the late cultivars were affected. But where the rust had not been reported earlier, favorable climatic conditions and a new strain of *P. pachyrhizi* caused major losses. The states of Bahia, Goiás, Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso were severely affected (Yorinori, 2004).

However, despite the intensive campaigns to alert and guidance on methods for identification and control, held in 2002 and in January and February of 2003, through lectures, publications and other means of dissemination, the technical assistance and most producers were not prepared to control the rust. In many crops, the fungicide application was delayed due to lack of product and/or excessive rain which precluded the spraying (Yorinori, 2004). In this season the damage caused by the rust (amounting the grain losses, control expenses and revenues falling) were approximately US\$ 1.29 billion (Soares et al. 2004).

The beginning of 2003/04 season was characterized by irregular rainfall and high temperatures, which probably not favored the outbreak of rust as expect. Moreover, the experience of loss in the previous crop left farmers in the areas previously affected readiness and "armed" for the chemical control. However in the southern region, the beginning of the harvest was characterized by mild temperatures and frequent rainfall, which favored the early emergence of *P. pachyrhizi*. The total damage caused by rust, in this year, adding the grain losses, control spending and falling revenue was approximately US\$ 2.28 billion (Yorinori, 2004).

Among the crops of 2005/06 to 2008/09 were recorded, respectively, 1,369; 2,766; 2,107 and 2,880 reports of the occurrence of soybean rust. While there is an increase in the number of reports over the years, it is not possible to assert that the severity of epidemics is related to the number of outbreaks, since it is observed only presence of disease in crops, once in 2006/07, when they were registered the greatest losses in productivity caused by rust due to the higher disease severity, the number of reported outbreaks was lower than in 2008/09 when, according to regional information, the attack of the disease was not as severe as that year (Spolti et al., 2009).

Since the disease monitoring, the Asian rust was not observed before the month of October, whether in the commercial field or in units of alert. The progress of the number of reports of disease presents a sigmoid pattern with a logarithmic phase and a stationary phase when approaches the end of growing season. The maximum rate of increase, indifferent to the season, was observed between January and March (90 to 150 days after October 1st), this period can be defined as critical in the epidemics development, being responsible for the differentiation of the final number of focus reported in the cycle (Spolti et al., 2009).

At present, around 70 fungicides are registered in the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture for managing soybean rust and many of these have been evaluated annually since 2003/2004 in a nationwide network of standardized coordinated by Embrapa Soja, a research unit of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Godoy et al., 2010; Scherm et al., 2009). The fungicides registered for control of Asian soybean rust belong into two main groups: Triazoles and strobilirins (Godoy & Flausino, 2008).

#### **3.4 Paraguay**

The soybean in Paraguay is the main agricultural export item, with a market of 70% of national output in the form of grain. This is due to high charges imposed by the European Union, the main buyer, for other soy subproducts such as soybean oil. Today, Paraguay is the sixth soybean production in the world (preceded by USA, Brazil, Argentina, China and India) and has a weighted average of 2,600kg/ha, performance similar to Argentina and Brazil (CAS, 2008).

climatic conditions and a new strain of *P. pachyrhizi* caused major losses. The states of Bahia,

However, despite the intensive campaigns to alert and guidance on methods for identification and control, held in 2002 and in January and February of 2003, through lectures, publications and other means of dissemination, the technical assistance and most producers were not prepared to control the rust. In many crops, the fungicide application was delayed due to lack of product and/or excessive rain which precluded the spraying (Yorinori, 2004). In this season the damage caused by the rust (amounting the grain losses, control

The beginning of 2003/04 season was characterized by irregular rainfall and high temperatures, which probably not favored the outbreak of rust as expect. Moreover, the experience of loss in the previous crop left farmers in the areas previously affected readiness and "armed" for the chemical control. However in the southern region, the beginning of the harvest was characterized by mild temperatures and frequent rainfall, which favored the early emergence of *P. pachyrhizi*. The total damage caused by rust, in this year, adding the grain losses, control spending and falling revenue was approximately US\$ 2.28 billion

Among the crops of 2005/06 to 2008/09 were recorded, respectively, 1,369; 2,766; 2,107 and 2,880 reports of the occurrence of soybean rust. While there is an increase in the number of reports over the years, it is not possible to assert that the severity of epidemics is related to the number of outbreaks, since it is observed only presence of disease in crops, once in 2006/07, when they were registered the greatest losses in productivity caused by rust due to the higher disease severity, the number of reported outbreaks was lower than in 2008/09 when, according to regional information, the attack of the disease was not as severe as that

Since the disease monitoring, the Asian rust was not observed before the month of October, whether in the commercial field or in units of alert. The progress of the number of reports of disease presents a sigmoid pattern with a logarithmic phase and a stationary phase when approaches the end of growing season. The maximum rate of increase, indifferent to the season, was observed between January and March (90 to 150 days after October 1st), this period can be defined as critical in the epidemics development, being responsible for the

At present, around 70 fungicides are registered in the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture for managing soybean rust and many of these have been evaluated annually since 2003/2004 in a nationwide network of standardized coordinated by Embrapa Soja, a research unit of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Godoy et al., 2010; Scherm et al., 2009). The fungicides registered for control of Asian soybean rust belong into two main groups:

The soybean in Paraguay is the main agricultural export item, with a market of 70% of national output in the form of grain. This is due to high charges imposed by the European Union, the main buyer, for other soy subproducts such as soybean oil. Today, Paraguay is the sixth soybean production in the world (preceded by USA, Brazil, Argentina, China and India) and has a weighted average of 2,600kg/ha, performance similar to Argentina and

differentiation of the final number of focus reported in the cycle (Spolti et al., 2009).

Triazoles and strobilirins (Godoy & Flausino, 2008).

expenses and revenues falling) were approximately US\$ 1.29 billion (Soares et al. 2004).

Goiás, Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso were severely affected (Yorinori, 2004).

(Yorinori, 2004).

year (Spolti et al., 2009).

**3.4 Paraguay** 

Brazil (CAS, 2008).

Since the appearance of Asian soybean rust in 2001 in Paraguay, there have been major changes in the soybean production system and it also contributed to better care for the crop, getting even better yields by protecting against various diseases of economic importance appellant in soybean. The productivity losses were very important in years when climatic conditions were favorable for the disease, especially during the breeding season and when constant rainfall recorded during the months of January and February, considered the most critical for the development of an epidemic Paraguay (Morel & Bogado, 2009).

In the first year where the disease was recorded yield losses were estimated, in the cultivars most affected, at more than 60%. On the next seasons, 2001/02 and 2002/03, the severity of the disease was not very important because of the drought but the late sown soybean crop showed severe losses of more than 50% of performance. This epidemic is especially observed when the rains season from the month of March to May (Morel & Bogado, 2009).

In all the years that the rust has been detected early, it was observed in plants of 30-35 days from sentinel plots in the region of Pirapó, considered an endemic area once is possible to detect the strong presence of the volunteer plant, being a fungus host, named Kudzu (*Pueraria lobata*), but the severity level ever has thrived in the vegetative phase. This demonstrates the importance of the survival of the disease during the winter, which has made a strong campaign of awareness among farmers aiming the elimination of inoculum source in areas with no winter crop, in order to avoid the primary infection in an early period of soybean cultivation (Morel & Bogado, 2009).

The crop of 2005/06, was the largest epidemic in the normal planting season, resulting in a loss of more than US\$ 400 million. This strong impact due to multiple factors, neglect of producers, the time control and problems in application of the technology. The number of fungicide applications was a maximum of 5 and a minimum of 2. In the season of 2008/09, the rust incidence was reported again in a very early (second fortnight of October) in crops planted in September, but the severe drought that affected the whole area of soybean production allowed the progress of the disease (Morel & Bogado, 2009).

In rare cases and in regions where rains started to become evident, controls measures have been made, but around the country more than 1 application of fungicides should be done for each producer. This drought was so important that did not allow the progress of the disease throughout the production area, except in some regions of late-sown soybean (Morel & Bogado, 2009).
