Optimizing Fungicide Timing for the Control of Rhizoctonia Crown and Root Rot of Sugar Beet Using Soil Temperature and Plant Growth Stages.

Azoxystrobin is applied early in the sugar beet growing season in north-central United States for control of Rhizoctonia damping-off and Rhizoctonia crown and root rot caused by Rhizoctonia solani anastomoses groups (AGs) 4 and 2-2, respectively. Fungicide application timings based on crop growth stage and soil temperature thresholds were evaluated in inoculated small-scale trials and in commercial fields with a history of Rhizoctonia crown and root rot. Soil temperature thresholds of 10, 15, and 20°C were selected for fungicide application timings and used to test whether soil temperature could be used to better time applications of azoxystrobin. In both small- and large-plot trials, timing applications after attainment of specific soil temperature thresholds did not improve efficacy of azoxystrobin in controlling damping-off or Rhizoctonia crown and root rot compared with application timings based on either planting date, seedling development, or leaf stage in a susceptible (E-17) and a resistant (RH-5) cultivar. Application rate and split application timings of azoxystrobin had no significant effect on severity of crown and root rot. Other environmental factors such as soil moisture may interact with soil temperature to influence disease development. Cv. RH-5 had higher sugar yield attributes than the susceptible cultivar (E-17) in seasons conducive and nonconducive to crown and root rot development. All isolates recovered from both small- and large-plot trials in all years were AG 2-2. R. solani AG 4 was not identified in any samples from any year.

Values under seige in Mexico: strategies for sheltering traditional values from change.

PIP: The adverse economic conditions of inflation and falling oil prices over the late 1970s and 1980s in Mexico forced many middle-class married women out of the home and into the workplace in order to help the family maintain its socioeconomic standing. Although this phenomenon ran directly against the traditional Mexican cultural construction of gender and family, many Uruapan middle-class couples had no alternative and rationalized the change by concealing, reinterpreting, or not directly challenging traditional values. Sections discuss the dilemma of middle-class families, Mexican middle-class adaptation to wives' employment, strategies for existing change in values, and the open acceptance of changed values. The author's comments and conclusions are based largely upon interviews with 16 married women of the period. It is concluded that even though the middle class resists them, changes have taken place over the past 20 years in the acceptance of married women in the workplace, the sharing of domestic work, fertility control, and equality between spouses in family decision making. It remains to be seen, however, whether these women will stop working and return to their formerly exclusive roles of wives and mothers if and when economic conditions improve in Mexico.^ieng