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Episode transcription:
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Drew Lyon: Hello, welcome to the WSU Wheat Beat podcast. I’m your host, Drew Lyon, and I want to thank you for joining me as we explore the world of small grains production and research at Washington State University. In each episode, I speak with researchers from WSU and the USDA-ARS to provide you with insights into the latest research on wheat and barley production.
If you enjoy the WSU Wheat Beat podcast, do us a favor and subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app and leave us a review so others can find the show too.
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My guest today is Dr. Tim Murray. Tim is a Rosalie and Harold Rea Brown Distinguished Endowed Chair in the Department of Plant Pathology at Washington State University. He joined the faculty at Washington State University in 1983 with research and teaching responsibilities. He taught introductory plant pathology until 2013 and then joined the Dryland Cropping Systems Team as Extension plant pathologist.
Tim established a translational research program on diseases of small grains and grasses focused on sustainable disease management, with an emphasis on disease resistance and pathogen genetic variation.
Good morning, Tim.
Dr. Tim Murray: Morning, Drew.
Drew Lyon: So, a little history from you. When did you arrive? I guess we said in 1983, but what are the earliest issues that you worked on back in the 80s?
Dr. Tim Murray: Well, actually, I got here in 1978. I was a graduate student at WSU. I graduated from UC Davis in June, and two weeks later I was here at WSU working with Bill Bruehl as a grad student, and I was here for five years before I joined the faculty.
Drew Lyon: Okay. So, you were a graduate student and right into the program or did you postdoc anywhere?
Dr. Tim Murray: There was a short transition. I was actually a postdoc here. I actually thought I was headed for Utah State for a postdoc with the USDA, but a job opened up–this job opened up. We had a faculty member in the department retire and they interviewed five people, including me. And I thought they were just giving me practice. And then, they surprisingly offered the job to me.
So, I graduated in June. I was working during the summer as a postdoc on a different project than I had done my research on. And then, started formally on the faculty in 1983.
Now, interesting–a little history there. There was another grad student in the department, Debbie Inglis. And in 1982, the summer of 1982, when this faculty member announced their retirement, he retired very suddenly. And so, the department was left shorthanded for teaching. So, Debbie Inglis and I were all but degree for our Ph.D.s, we were just working on our dissertations and the department hired us to teach the introductory plant pathology class.
So, Debbie taught it in fall semester 1982. And then I started teaching it in spring semester 1983. And then I did that for the next 30 years.
Drew Lyon: [laughter] Well, it’s our good fortune that the luck just broke that way.
Dr. Tim Murray: Yeah, yeah, it was. You know, one of the things about being here for a small grain pathologist is there’s not a lot of places better that I can imagine to work on wheat than in this part of the world. And it’s a great place to live too. I’ve seen a lot of the world where wheat is grown and our climate here is pretty nice.
Drew Lyon: It is. And it is definitely a wheat growing area. I thought when I moved from Nebraska, where I worked with wheat, I thought I knew wheat and wheat was important. But you come here and it’s just a whole different world.
Dr. Tim Murray: It is, it is.
Drew Lyon: Okay. What were some of the issues you worked on back in your early career?
Dr. Tim Murray: Well, that’s interesting. The main disease problem that was of concern was strawbreaker foot rot or what we call eyespot. It was, well–it’s a disease of winter wheat and only winter wheat. And at the time, the only real effective control measure we had for it was spraying a fungicide.
And at the time, we were spraying up to a million acres a year with fungicide, one of three fungicides for control of that disease. And so, we’re talking 1983. These fungicides had just come in in the late 1970s. And so, the big question–we had three fungicides–they were all in the same mode of action–what we call today FRAC group–FRAC group one, and there were three fungicides. And so, the big question was which one should I spray?
And so, for many years I worked on fungicide efficacy. And, one of the things about these three fungicides, people will recall Benlate, Mertect, and Topsin were the three fungicides–those were the trade names. They’re all, you know, what we call benzimidazole-type fungicides and they were widely used because they were effective on a wide variety of crops a lot of places around the world, and almost every place they were used, fungicide resistance developed in the pathogen.
And so, about the time we were working on fungicide efficacy, we also began looking around to see if we were going to run into a fungicide resistance issue. And ultimately we did, and we spent some years working on that. And over the years we tried to work on other chemistries to bring in some resistance management strategies. The one chemistry that came in were the triazole fungicides or sterile biosynthesis inhibiting fungicides and the product Tilt was registered.
And so, we started advocating for a combination treatment of one of the benzimidazoles plus Tilt for control and resistance management. And interestingly, although all of those fungicides are now generic off patent, those who still use a fungicide are usually–if they use that particular product, they’re using a combination treatment.
Drew Lyon: Okay. And we’ve seen trying to do the same thing in herbicides, trying to get people to use multiple–it’s not a simple task when you have to buy them separately and pay extra for them, but it really does help the longevity of those products. Doesn’t it?
Dr. Tim Murray: It does. And you know, in the world of fungicides, we’re facing the same issues that you’re facing in the world of herbicides [and that] is that there really are no new chemistries coming to market. The chemistries that are out there are being recycled within the groups of fungicides that we have. And so that’s been an issue.
And from there, one of the things that we worked on in parallel there was the development of disease-resistant varieties. We felt like ultimately that was the long-term solution for control. And indeed, that has turned out to be true.
There was a source of resistance from a wild grass that was discovered in 1934 that was ultimately transferred into wheat, and it became available in the early 1970s. And Bob Allen, among others here, started working on that. And then the first resistant varieties, disease-resistant varieties for strawbreaker came out about 1987. That was Hyak and Madsen, and Madsen went on to be the leading winter wheat variety in the state for probably close to 20 years grown on upwards of 700,000 acres and primarily because of its resistance to strawbreaker.
And, as a result of that–well, the breeders today now, the gene that is in Madsen and Hyak has been used widely. There’s a large number of other varieties with resistance to strawbreaker available now and as a result of that, we spray a fraction of that million acres with a fungicide for strawbreaker control today. So, that’s been a real success story in my mind.
Drew Lyon: And when I came here in 2012, I didn’t hear much about that disease. The disease I have heard a lot about is stripe rust?
Dr. Tim Murray: Yeah.
Drew Lyon: And, when did that come into the picture and I know you’ve worked in there. When did you start shifting to that disease?
Dr. Tim Murray: Yeah.
Drew Lyon: I’ll recall in Nebraska, I remember being at a field day, I think it was around 2000, and Steve Baenziger, who was the wheat breeder there, pulled off a leaf of a plant and said “see this?” It was a Kansas variety. “Here’s stripe rust. You won’t see this but every 10-20 years.” And after that it was like every other year.
Dr. Tim Murray: Right.
Drew Lyon: So, something changed there in early 2000. But was it a problem here even before then? The climate seems much more amenable to stripe rust here than it was in western Nebraska.
Dr. Tim Murray: It is. And, in the world of cereal rusts, there’s three main rusts: stripe rust, leaf rust, and stem rust. And stem rust usually occurs in the warmest areas, leaf rust in the intermediate areas, and stripe rust in the coolest areas. And that’s why the Pacific Northwest, we’ve been the stripe rust capital in the U.S. for a long time.
The disease has been a problem for a long time, going back to the early 1960s. It probably emerged as more of a problem after common bunt came under control, which was in the 50s. And stripe rust was–I should back up and say that when I started here on the faculty, there were three of us working on wheat diseases. I had things like strawbreaker and cephalosporium stripe mainly. Rollie Line was the foliar disease guy, USDA person, and he was the real stripe rust expert. And so, he really worked on stripe rust. And then Jim Cook was here, and Jim had the soilborne root diseases, Fusarium, rhizoctonium. So, we each were kind of working–there were enough diseases to keep us all busy.
And so, Rollie came in the early 1960s and worked on stripe rust and really established a really comprehensive program on that. And at the time, stripe rust was–we’d see a stripe rust epidemic every several years. It was kind of the sort of the boom-and-bust cycle. We’d have a big epidemic and then it would drop off and it would build up over a period of years, and we’d have 1 or 2 years where it was a big problem and then it would drop off. And that occurred until about 2010.
And things really changed in 2000–it was about the 2010 or 11 crop season, I forget now, but basically what happened is we had about 30 days or so conducive to stripe rust infection every day from May into June. And for stripe rust, we rely on host plant resistance, and in particular, we really rely on what we call high-temperature adult plant resistance. And as the name suggests, high temperature–the temperatures don’t have to be real high, but they need to be up around 70 or so for that resistance to really become effective. And in that particular year, we had cool temperatures for over a month, and so we had moisture and cool temperatures that were conducive for stripe rust. Everybody was saying, “Well, we’re waiting for resistance to kick in.”
And so, we had a huge epidemic then, and then since then, most years we’ve seen significant stripe rust. The last few years, we’ve gotten back into a little bit more normal pattern of not having severe stripe rust every year, but as a consequence of that, there’s really a lot of awareness of stripe rust out there now.
At the time, back in the early days when I first started, we really didn’t have fungicides available for stripe rust. Those fungicides I mentioned for strawbreaker were not effective against stripe rust. It wasn’t later until, I believe it was Tilt [that] was the first, propiconazole was the first fungicide registered for stripe rust control.
And, it was very effective–still remains very effective. We don’t have an issue of resistance with that fungicide for stripe rust, so it remains very effective. But it was an Extension effort to educate growers about the effectiveness of that fungicide. And at the time, it was, you know, not off patent so it was an expensive treatment. Wheat prices were low, you know, on the order of, $3 a bushel, as I recall about then. And so, in order to get a break even, you needed about 6 to 8 bushels yield improvement, which is not hard with stripe rust when stripe rust is severe.
So, yeah, stripe rust is a big problem and it continues to be a big problem. There’s a huge breeding effort on it. Not only here in the Pacific Northwest, but elsewhere in the U.S.
You know, interestingly, about that time, something has changed in the stripe rust population such that now stripe rust is a major problem in the Great Plains where, like you mentioned before, leaf rust used to be the big problem. In fact, we used to joke with our Kansas colleagues about all you had to do was wait for the stripe rust to come in–excuse me, the leaf rust to come in, because that was all they had to really worry about. But here, we had a lot of other things to worry about besides stripe rust.
Drew Lyon: Okay. What do you see as some of the simplest things growers can do to manage diseases in their wheat fields?
Dr. Tim Murray: Well, one of the things about the disease picture in the Pacific Northwest, and I always try to emphasize this when I get out and talk to groups, is the diversity of diseases that we have in the region. When you think about the climate that we have in the Pacific Northwest and you go from west to east, say, from Yakima to the border with Idaho, we have a rainfall gradient where we’re producing wheat in areas that have 6 inches of annual precipitation all the way up to about 20-22 inches of annual precipitation.
I always try to remind growers, just like my students in my intro Plant Path class, that the two most important factors for disease to occur and how severe it is are temperature and moisture. And so, we have this gradient about every 10 to 15 miles you travel east you pick up an inch of rainfall. There [are] growers in the state who farm down in the Horse Heaven Hills who tell me they have different rainfall amounts from one end of a field to another because they have these long, skinny fields.
And so, knowing what your disease problems are, I think, is the first step in control. You have to know what the issues are, and so that’s what I emphasize when I’m out talking. I think a lot of growers, most growers know what the problems are they’ve had historically and those likely are going to be their problems going forward.
But, these things vary depending on year. We have a lot of variation from year to year, as everybody knows, in temperature, rainfall, you know, when it’s warm and when it’s cool and when the rainfall comes. Those are all important in determining how severe the disease problems are. So, that’s the main thing, I think, is to know what your problem is.
And to help with that, we have a disease diagnostic lab here in Pullman. Cassandra Bates is our diagnostician and she is very good. And, both Tim Paulitz and I, work with her when she has a challenging diagnoses that she hasn’t seen before.
Drew Lyon: Okay. Tim, I wanted to have you on today because I know you’re about to head off into retirement and you have so many years of experience, I wanted to be able to share some of that. And, I’ve also appreciated you as a member of the Dryland Cropping Systems Team because you’ve brought very many great ideas to the team and I’ve really appreciated that. And I know the growers appreciate all that you do and have done for them. And it’s hard. When somebody with that many years of experience walks out the door, it’s a loss to the system. So, anyhow, I wanted to get you on here [and] have you say farewell.
What’s next for you?
Dr. Tim Murray: Well, thanks, Drew. Yeah, that’s a good question. It was a hard decision to come to because I like what I do, but I’m in my 42nd year of doing this and, you know, they say that age is just a number, but sometimes you wake up and your body reminds you that it’s more than just a number.
And, I’ve got other things that I want to do while I still can. My children have all moved east of the Mississippi now, so I’d like to be able to be a little bit more free to go visit them.
I still have one graduate student. As you mentioned earlier, we are working on a stripe rust disease forecasting research project and that is the focus of her research. She’ll be here probably until late 2025 or early 2026. And so, I plan to continue mentoring her on that. It’s a joint project with Xianming Chen, and so we’ll continue working on that. I have some writing projects that I want to finish up–things that I just didn’t have time for when I was, you know, working full time.
One of my favorite projects we didn’t get a chance to talk about today is the Barberry Eradication Program in the Pacific Northwest. A lot of people know about barberry eradication in the Great Plains of the U.S.–huge program. What people don’t realize is that the Pacific Northwest is the only place in North America where stem rust is still cycling through the barberry. And so, we have a very interesting history here that I’d like to be able to tell.
So, there’s some projects like that. But, I’ve been a photographer since I was in elementary school, and I tell people I want to spend more time with my camera.
Drew Lyon: Okay. Well, excellent. I wish you all the best and we’ll look forward to seeing some of these other projects come to fruition. I know the stripe rust tool–or I hope it can develop into a tool to help growers know when that’s coming—that’ll be a very valuable resource for our growers in this part of the world.
Dr. Tim Murray: Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Drew. Appreciate it.
Drew Lyon: Thank you. Tim, good to have you on.
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Thanks for joining us and listening to the WSU Wheat Beat podcast. If you like what you hear don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you have questions or topics you’d like to hear on future episodes, please email me at drew.lyon — that’s lyon@wsu.edu — (drew.lyon@wsu.edu). You can find us online at smallgrains.wsu.edu and on Facebook and Twitter [X] @WSUSmallGrains. The WSU Wheat Beat podcast is a production of CAHNRS Communications and the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University.
I’m Drew Lyon, we’ll see you next time.
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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests of this podcast are their own and does not imply Washington State University’s endorsement.