The fungicide application is important to the wheat field and its efficacy is related mainly to the biologic timing for the control. The aim of this paper was to study the influence of timing of fungicide application in the damage caused by leaf rust of wheat (P. triticina). A spore trap Siga was installed in the experimental area to assist the prediction of leaf rust before the first symptom. The cultivar used was CD 104 - susceptible to the rust - and the applications were made at 7, 14 and 21 days after the first symptoms of the leaf rust on the plants. It was evaluated in this experiment the area under the disease progress curve, obtained by the disease severity, and the yield (kg/ha) and hectolitre weight (g) indexes of the field. The trap Siga was able to detect spores of leaf rust before the disease symptoms, supporting its identification in the field in the first symptoms. The delay of the fungicide application increased the level of disease severity, reducing significantly the control level and causing considerable damage to the crop yield. It was verified yield losses approximately of 80 kg per day of delay of the application.
chemical control; timing of fungicide application; spore trap
