Fusarium

For those of you who where unable to make it to our meeting on Wednesday, here is a quick recap of Kelly Turkington's presentation.
Fusarium is a disease that can infect all cereal grain crops.
There are four types of Fusarium
1) Graminearium- main concern due to the don levels ( mycotoxins produced)
2) Ciumorum- common in AB and no cause for concern
3) Aveneceum- more common in AB and is no cause for concern
4)Crookwellense- mainly found in Eastern Can.
Had two methods of spreading- by wind and by rain splash.
Anthesis or time of flowering is the key time for infect.
Seed treatments will have a high level of suppression on the seed borne spores, but not if its in the soil
Fungicide is registered for suppression only and has a short window of about 4-5 days ( flowering)
Barley can be harder to suppress in crop as its window of infection is longer than it is on wheat
Wet late summers with temperatures around 15-30 degrees is ideal for colonization of the disease.
The earlier in the head is infected the worse damage to the kernel, and vs versa

There is not way to know if it is Graminearium or another type of fusarium at the elevator.  It has to be sent to a lab to find out what species it is and if it is in fact fusarium. 
Should get the DNA test ( positive/negative result) AND the plate test that gives you a % infection (most labs do the plate especially if the DNA is positive)
Corn doesn't create or bring in the problem but it does act as a host same as other cereal stubble does.
Tillage is not a fix for the disease

Cattle can handle a much higher level of infection than hogs can in their feed rations.
Once the infected seed has passed through the digestive tract of a cow especially it showed no detectable levels of viable graminearium.  High temperature will kill the pathogen (+70 degrees C), but it loves cold temps.

There is NO silver bullet, but the entire package of management is your best defence.
Rotation is key!
Seed good clean seed
Treat it with a high quality seed treatment
Seed at a high seeding rate ( 2 bu/ac min)
Possible correctly timed fungicide needed.


As always call our office if you have any further questions or to drop off a seed test to send to the lab!

Aster Yellows

In the words of Dr. Ieuan Evans " Disaster Yellows" can be blamed for a significant amount of the yield loss we saw this year in canola especially. At the Farm forum last week he went over a recap of the disease.  Here are the high spots of the discussion.
*Aster yellows caused an estimated 2 billion dollars worth of damage in cereals and oil seeds
*It is a disease carried by a very small insect called the leaf hopper that spreads the disease as it feeds on crops. 
*The leaf hopper typically flies up from the Central States of the US after they hatch in the wild grass of the US plains in March to May. 
*They pick up the bacterium by eating infected wild grass and once the bacterium is in their body it stays with them for the remainder of the insects life. 
*They can drift for many hundreds of miles riding the wind currents from the the south right up into our more northern region. 
*Because the Southern and Central States experienced such a early drought there was nothing left for the leaf hoppers to feed on, causing them to move North into Canada much earlier than usual, therefor damaging crops at a young vulnerable stage. 
*The overall loss across the three prairie provinces is estimated to be 20-25%  on canola and 10-40% loss in wheat.  
 *Prediction for 2013- Chances are that it may be hard to find AY in any crop next year. The wind could be different, the leaf hopper could have a population collapse, or the infection could be non existent. 


We will be on the look out!