Spray efforts hold down rust outbreak

Ag spray planes are all over the skies of Whitman County, dropping second, and even third applications of fungicide on wheat in an effort to stave off an infestation of stripe rust.

The applications appear to be paying off.

Rob McGuire, a pilot for Fender Air Service, said while he has been busy in the sky, his aerial view has shown much less of the orange evidence of fungus than he saw during the outbreak of last spring.

“It’s nothing like last year,” he said. “Everybody’s been kind of trying to keep it from getting as bad as last year.”

Stripe rust is a fungus that attacks chaff, leaves and...