10/08/05 WASHINGTON (Reuters): The highly contagious soyabean rustdisease spread to another county in Alabama and may have crept intoMissouri, state and federal officials said on Tuesday.

A single suspected soyabean rust spore was collected in Missouri's BooneCounty, but the sample is too small for scientists to confirm if thedisease is present, said Laura Sweets, a plant pathologist with theUniversity of Missouri.

Separately, the US Agriculture Department said the fungus was found inAlabama's Escambia County, the fourth county in the state to be infected.

The disease was found on a sentinel plot in the R5 growth stage, accordingto the USDA's rust-monitoring web site