Soybean Rust
29 Jan 2023
Ink painting/drawing of soybean rust, caused by the fungi Phakopsora pachyrhizi or Phakopsora meibomiae.
The painting shows a trifoliate soybean leaf covered in small reddish-brown spots. Some regions of the leaf show yellow discolouration.
Top: scanned image
Middle: photograph
Bottom: phytopoetry!
This image is paired with Frogeye of Soybean.
S. E. Bartholomew @Phytopoetry tweeted a four-verse poem in response to my painting!
The montage of four tweet screenshots reads:
Phakopsora sighs as it settles on leaves
After it’s ride on the blustery breeze
The appresorial peg makes plants beg
To be spared from this rusty trial
But let’s be candid, if the spores have landed
You’ll have hyphae in a short while!
———
Stomatal gates are the usual place
Where leaves are prone to failure
But this rusty spore sailor cuts cell walls like a tailor
Now with moisture and heat and a bit of time
Many more spores soar towards northern climes.
———
Riding a hurricane across the equator
Sentinel plots kept rust on the radar
While chem companies fomented formulations
For emergency fungicide crop applications
———
So if you’re headed south
Punch ol’ rust in the mouth
Saying “Give those soybeans a break
But since your pusty old spores
Have come to these shores
You can have all the kudzu you can take”