Red crown rot, a fungal disease that hides in soil, rots soybean roots away and destroys part of the bean's leaf tissue, has been found in Minnesota. And there’s no cure for it.

Dean Malvick, a University of Minnesota Extension disease researcher, said when a Rock County farmer sent samples for testing in September, he was confounded.

“At first, we were questioning whether it was really [red crown rot],” Malvick said. “Because it hadn't been detected anywhere near that location.”

Red crown rot was previously detected in Missouri last year. How it made its way north without being detected in Iowa or other surrounding states remains a mystery.

“It's a spreading concern,” Malvick said.

But how the disease spreads remains a question mark. It was first found over fifty years ago in North C

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