Infection can occur at any stage of the soybean growth cycle but occurs most frequently after flowering (Bayer, 2018). The fungus has more of a damaging impact when infection occurs before or at flowering (Lin and Kelly, 2018). Fungal infection occurs with direct contact from an already infected soybean pod but the fungus can also spread from seed to seed during plant growth. If infection does occur, external plant damage can be seen one to two weeks after contact with the pathogen.