Manitoba farmers already know that fusarium head blight can cost them a lot of cash. What they don’t know is how much money is lost due to the use of wheat seed infected with the fungus.
Fusarium is the leading disease in terms of damage to barley and wheat crops in southern Manitoba. The fungus has cut wheat yields by an average of 10 percent during the past five years.
The role infected seed plays in the spread of fusarium head blight is being studied by Deb McLaren at Agriculture Canada’s research station in Brandon and Geanie Gilbert of Ag Canada’s cereal research centre in Winnipeg. They hope to have some answers by the end of this year.
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Research into fusarium becomes more urgent as the disease spreads. It’s prevalent in southern Manitoba this year and has a toehold in Saskatchewan.
“It’s a tough one this year for the growers because there’s so much of it out there,” said McLaren. “There’s now concern that there will be problems in the wheat producing areas of Saskatchewan. That’s a big concern.”
Research has already shown that fusarium head blight overwinters on cereal and grass residues in the soil. Spores infect wheat plants at flowering and heading time.
McLaren and Gilbert want to know whether those spores can also spread from infected seed up the stem of the plant. Their study should tell farmers whether to worry about infected seed that gets blown through their combines and returned to the field.
“Most years you tend to have the lighter seed that can be blown out,” said McLaren. “It depends on environmental conditions and what not. Some years there’s not a big weight differential between the seed and in other years there might be.”
Fusarium can cause infected heads to ripen prematurely. Because the seeds don’t fill properly, they often weigh less than healthy seeds.
By changing louvre openings and air velocities on their combines, farmers can blow a lot of the lightweight, diseased kernels out the back of their machines. That can make a difference when their grain arrives at the elevator for grading.
Fusarium is expected to take a large bite out of Manitoba’s wheat yields this year, likely 10 percent or more.
Barley crops will also suffer. Losses in yield could be three times higher than they were a year ago, said Andy Tekauz, a plant pathologist for Agriculture Canada.
“It’s still not a big amount compared to wheat, but it is significant.”
Farmers in Manitoba aren’t ignoring the threat fusarium can pose to their crops, Tekauz said: “It’s one of the reasons producers probably planted less wheat and barley this year, particularly wheat.”
Fungicides and crop rotations are among the methods now used to help curb fusarium. The long-term solution will be wheat and barley varieties that are resistant to the disease.
