Improving Yields and Managing Dry Bean Bacterial Diseases in Nebraska with New Copper-Alternative Chemicals

Bacterial diseases, common blight, halo blight, brown spot, and wilt are major constraints to the production of dry edible beans in western Nebraska. Owing to a lack of effective control options, these diseases have been difficult to properly manage. Cultivars with partial disease resistance are available for some diseases, but not for all. Furthermore, few chemical products are accessible other than copper-based products, which have proven to be erratic in efficacy, depending on variables such as pathogen involved, disease pressure, and environmental conditions. Therefore, field studies were conducted in western Nebraska for 7 years (13 site years) evaluating newly emerging copper-alternative chemicals for managing these diseases in dry beans. Over this time period, five different products were tested for at least 2 years each and were compared with two commercially available copper compounds (Kocide and MasterCop). The new alternatives included two growth-promoting chemicals (ecoAgra A300, WakeUP Summer), and three contact sanitizers (Goldshield 5, SaniDate, and OxiDate). Treatments with SaniDate and ecoAgra A300 more consistently produced higher yields than other treatments, while not reducing disease incidence. These improvements were achieved primarily under high levels of disease, providing promise for use in production systems in western Nebraska.