LEDUC, Alta. – Fusarium head blight isn’t well acquainted with Alberta, but the traveling plant fungal disease is looking for an introduction.
“Alberta is nowhere near a problem but there’s potential. I don’t know any reason why it couldn’t come here,” said Randall Clear, mycologist with the Canadian Grain Commission.
Fusarium graminearum, the strain that can wreak havoc with cereal crops, is steadily moving west, said Clear at a March 25 fusarium head blight seminar near Edmonton.
The disease, first detected in Canada in Manitoba in 1984, is now evident in most of that province’s cereal crops. About 43 percent of wheat samples there are damaged. In Saskatchewan 3.6 percent of wheat samples show fusarium.
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Before 1993, when the disease was first detected in Saskatchewan, officials didn’t think it would move outside Manitoba. Now they’re sure it is a potential problem for Alberta.
“It could be your millennium bug,” said Clear.
Fusarium can release a toxin called deoxynivalenol, or DON, which results in lower yields and dockage or rejection at the elevator. The malting industry will not accept barley with DON. Neither will the hog industry, because it is thought to reduce feed intake.
But even though fusarium can be disastrous, it’s hard to make Alberta producers pay attention before it hits, said Walter Yarish of Alberta Agriculture.
“They already have enough crocodiles in the swamp to worry about,” he said.
Strategies to fight the disease include planting varieties less susceptible to fusarium and staggering seeding dates. The disease tends to strike during flowering and heading. After fusarium graminearum takes hold, DON can be released until harvest.
Rotation is also important, said Kelly Turkington of Agriculture Canada’s Lacombe Research Centre. He said cereal crops shouldn’t be planted back to back. Fungicides and treated seed are options but aren’t always effective, he said. Weather is the biggest factor.
Researchers are studying whether practices like low soil disturbance direct seeding encourage fusarium by leaving more trash in the field.
But until fusarium head blight becomes a bigger problem in Alberta, Clear thinks farmers should not alter cropping practices.
“I’d hate to see them base rotations on a disease that is rare in Alberta.” Clear knows of only one Alberta field infected with fusarium graminearum.
For now, farmers should monitor fields for evidence of the disease. They should pick a sample of shrivelled kernels for testing to ensure the crops aren’t infected with the graminearum strain.
Clear has spoken to some Alberta farmers who are concerned about the disease but so far it’s not a major worry.
