December 10, 2014
Growing clubroot resistant varieties in areas with low levels of inoculum or areas beside regions known to have clubroot is a good pre-emptive strategy to keep clubroot to a minimum in a particular field. The question for growers in areas with serious blackleg is whether to grow varieties with effective blackleg resistance or grow varieties with clubroot resistance. Current varieties…
September 24, 2014
Pre-swath or immediately post-swath are good times to check blackleg severity. Checking more than a week after swathing makes it more difficult to identify blackleg because other decomposers will start to work on the plant, often masking whatever blackleg symptoms may have been evident…
August 20, 2014
While you are out there checking to see if your crop is ready to cut/harvest is a perfect time to also check for disease! Likewise, the representative sampling technique used to accurately determine the stage of the crop is also ideal for disease scouting of your field. Pulling out a few plants and checking for the big three diseases, as…
August 7, 2014
A vivid new video from the Canola Council of Canada zooms in on blackleg, showing how the canola disease infects a plant, how it spreads throughout a field, and what growers can do to protect blackleg resistance traits. The video, called “Blackleg Disease and Resistance Management,” is posted at www.youtube.com/canolacouncil…
April 24, 2014
Resistance can lose its effectiveness when repeated cropping of a resistance source selects for individuals within a pathogen population that are virulent on that resistance. Initially, these new pathogen strains are very rare but then increase by being able to attack the "resistant" genotypes…
September 11, 2013
Lots of sclerotinia stem rot. As harvest progresses, we’re hearing reports of higher levels of sclerotinia stem rot in some regions. Some fields that did not get a fungicide spray are at 40-50% infection. That works out to an estimated 20-25% yield loss, or 10-13 bu./ac. on a canola crop with 50 bu./ac. yield potential. Fungicide applications for sclerotinia stem…
August 28, 2013
Sclerotinia stem rot (above) and blackleg can both cause what looks like pre-mature ripening. Both diseases, when severe, can cut off nutrient flow up the stem, resulting in a whitened dead plant. Both can cause increased lodging. However, long-term management requires an accurate identification of which disease is the cause. Disease identification will make sure you make the correct seed…
August 21, 2013
Plant pathologists from across the Prairies are surveying canola for disease levels. For each field surveyed, they select 20 random plants at 5 random locations for a total of 100 plants. For blackleg, they pull up each plant and clip the stem just below ground level. Each stem is then rated for what percentage of the stem cross section is…
August 8, 2013
A 5-year project to investigate changes in blackleg needs 20-25 growers per Prairie province to volunteer fields for the survey. This would be a great way for growers to learn more about blackleg management…
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