The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program’s Corn and Soybean Diseases Diagnosis and Assessment project, which includes St. Lawrence County, found one disease of corn not seen in the region in more than 30 years, and one soybean disease new to New York.

The finding is among the results of a two-year project benchmarking common and newly-emerging diseases of corn and soybean crops in the six northernmost counties of New York, including St. Lawrence.

The complete report is posted at www.nnyagdev.org.

Cornell University Plant Pathologist Gary C. Bergstrom led the research team that included Cornell Cooperative Extension field crop specialists Michael Hunter and Kitty O’Neil and 26 cooperating farmers scouting for diseases in NNY corn and soybean fields in 2013 and 2014. The survey found head smut in corn and northern stem canker in soybeans.

Head smut has not been identified in New York since the 1980s.

Northern stem canker has not previously been identified or documented in New York State. Northern stem canker was also identified in western NY crops in 2014.

Jaime Cummings in the field crops pathology lab at Cornell University analyzed the survey samples for pathogen identification. The USDA Laboratory of Xiaohong Wang at Cornell in Ithaca analyzed the samples specifically for soybean cyst nematode. Soybean cyst nematode was not confirmed in the region. Researchers plan a more intense assay for the pest as part of the continuation of the corn and soybean disease assessment project in 2015.