Wichita ? As harvest of a record soybean crop wraps up, Kansas farmers are turning their attention to a new disease threat that could ruin yields next year.

The state’s soybean producers are expected to haul in a soybean harvest of 110.7 million bushels, Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service said Friday.

The total would make this year’s crop 94 percent larger than last year’s drought-plagued crop, the service said. This year’s yields will be expected to average 41 bushels per acre, also a record.

But the abundant crop forecast comes just days after the discovery in Louisiana of the nation’s first case of soybean rust, a fungal disease that can devastate yields if left untreated.

“It sure will be on the minds of everybody this winter,” said Kevin Mauler, a Great Bend soybean grower. “It is going to raise a lot of questions, there will be a lot of discussions at coffee shops. We dreaded it and hoped it would take longer to get here.”

Fortunately for Kansas, most of the state’s soybeans — 79 percent — already have been cut, the service reported.

Meanwhile, soybean rust seminars are on the agenda of fall meetings as more farmers seek to learn the disease’s characteristics and control methods, Mauler said.

“It has got to be a concern for all the soybean growers across all the United States,” he said. “We knew it was coming. We just didn’t know when it would get here.”

Fungicide treatments to control the disease can cost up to $25 an acre, but Kansas producers will have more options for approved chemicals.

“We’ve been anticipating soybean rust’s arrival in the United States, so we asked that EPA approve registering certain fungicides for use in Kansas,” said Adrian Polansky, Kansas secretary of agriculture.

The statistics service also has raised its forecasts for the state’s other two major fall crops.

Corn production in the state is projected at 415.3 million bushels, 2 percent higher than estimates a month ago and 38 percent bigger than the harvest last year.

Estimates for sorghum production were raised to 223.3 million bushels, up 3 percent from last month and 71 percent bigger than last year’s crop.