A high level of sclerotinia in last fall’s sunflower crop is forcing many Manitoba producers to destroy the seeds they have in storage.
“This particular year, the quality is probably poorer than normal and there are no markets developing at the moment,” said David Koroscil, manager of insurance projects with Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp.
“A lot of guys are saying nobody wants the product at all.”
To date, 150 sunflower growers have filed insurance claims with MASC for the 2009 crop, said Koroscil.
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Statistics Canada reported last year that Manitoba growers planted 160,000 acres of sunflowers. In a typical year, confectionary sunflowers represent 70 percent of the provincial crop.
The higher than usual amount of sclerotinia in the 2009 crop can be explained by last year’s weather, Koroscil said.
“The crop seemed to look reasonable in September, then started to deteriorate through that cold, wet month of October.”
The primary quality issues are sclerotinia head rot and sclerotia in the seeds.
“Head rot is an exact explanation of what happens. It really rots the head,” said Ben Friesen, purchasing manager with Keystone Grain, a sunflower processor and exporter in Winkler, Man.
“The actual sunflower shells are white on the outside. And then if you open them up, the kernel inside is brown … which causes this product to go to bird food or not even be usable at all.”
Sclerotia are irregularly shaped fungal bodies on the plant’s stalk and head, which can wind up in the combine hopper.
“You sometimes get them in a package of sunflower seeds. A little twig is what it looks like,” Koroscil said.
The quality issues are more common in the eastern half of the province. Many growers east of Portage la Prairie have a crop that nobody wants.
“Some producers have absolutely no value. They’ve got grain in the bins with no market,” said Blair Woods, a director of the National Sunflower Association of Canada and grower in western Manitoba, near Elgin.
Some growers knew at harvest they had a problem but many put the crop in the bin hoping it would be good enough to market, Woods said.
Producers unable to sell their confectionary seeds into the human or bird food markets are looking at destroying what they have in the bin.
“You can’t haul it to a landfill site,” Koroscil said, noting that means growers will likely burn the seeds in storage.
The lack of quality confectionary seeds isn’t having a huge impact on Keystone Grain, Friesen said.
Keystone, the largest exporter in Canada, had contracts with producers in western Manitoba and the company has sufficient stocks of confectionary seeds to supply its customers around the world.
But smaller players are having a difficult time finding quality product and exporting Manitoba seeds.
“It makes it very tough,” said John Elias, president of Pembina Seeds in Morden. “Argentina is coming off now with a very good quality crop. It’s really hurting our exports.”
Friesen isn’t worried about the long-term implications of a low quality Manitoba crop this year.
“Realistically, this year, it was very much a weather thing,” he said. “We didn’t have any heat. We didn’t have any dry weather. It’s kind of a one in 10, one in 20, that this happens.”
