Clubroot continues to devastate Alberta canola fields, says a university professor co-ordinating surveys for the disease.
Stephen Strelkov of the University of Alberta said the canola disease has been detected in at least 10 counties from central Alberta to the south.
It has been confirmed in at least 170 fields, mostly in the four counties surrounding Edmonton, he added, but those numbers lack the disease confirmations in surveys conducted by counties.
Rick Thomas, director of agriculture services with Leduc County, said the county has inspected all 350 canola fields in its jurisdiction for the soil borne disease. While the county is waiting for final results, the disease has been confirmed in 60 to 70 fields.
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Krista Rivet, communications co-ordinator for Parkland County, said 22 fields were confirmed to have the disease in 105 canola fields surveyed.
The hardest hit areas are Sturgeon County, Parkland County, Strathcona County and Leduc County.
The disease has also been confirmed in Westlock, Wetaskiwin, Camrose, Flagstaff, Newell and Lac Ste. Anne Counties.
Through the surveys, Strelkov is trying to learn how the disease spreads. He’s also looking at the pathology to find a way to control the disease, which threatens Alberta’s $3.2 billion canola industry.
Strelkov said the disease seems to be spread mainly by farm machinery moving between fields. He’s alarmed by how quickly it spreads within a field.
Brent Hoyland, agriculture fieldman with Flagstaff County, said clubroot was brought into the county in 2005 through research trials for blackleg resistance in canola. The researcher with the trials identified the disease and measures were taken to control it.
Since then, the disease has been confirmed in two more fields within Flagstaff County.
In the past farmers and researchers may have assumed poor canola yields or spotty crops were caused by drought or sclerotinia. Yield losses can reach more than 50 percent depending on the severity of the infection of clubroot spores in the soil.
Clubroot first appeared in Edmonton area canola fields in 2003. The spores can live in the soil for up to 20 years. This spring clubroot was declared a pest under the Alberta Agricultural Pests Act, which gave municipalities the power to enforce control measures.
Dave Trautman, assistant agriculture fieldman with Camrose County, said while clubroot has been confirmed there, he doesn’t know where the outbreaks have occurred.
“We don’t have the ability to act on information because no one gives us any. It’s frustrating for the custodians of the agricultural pest act.”
Thomas said county officials heard last year that clubroot was in the area but no one would tell them where it was. Worried about the seriousness of the disease, officials decided to test every canola field in the county.
This fall notices will go out to each landowner prohibiting them from growing canola on that land for at least five years.
“It’s definitely spreading and our county administration has suggested we need to take a hard-nosed approach to the control of the disease,” he said. “We want to deal with this as quickly as possible.”
Next year the county will continue surveying canola crops and monitoring land where canola crops are prohibited.
Steve Majek, director of agricultural services with Wetaskiwin County, said he plans to recommend to his county council that no canola be grown on an infested field for four years if it has less than a 20 percent infection rate. A heavily infested field with 20 percent or more infection must be taken out of canola for seven years.
In one of the most heavily infested fields in his county, the farmer had grown canola every second year in the same field for more than 10 years.
“Maybe it’s time we recognized those rotations are too danged tight,” Majek said.
Officials with Parkland County are taking a softer approach. Rivet said officials there plan to use a voluntary program recommending farmers not grow canola for up to five years if clubroot is found in a field.
“It’s fairly evident what a significant impact clubroot disease will have on farmers,” she said.
