LEDUC, Alta. – “This is what you don’t want to see happen in Alberta,” said Alan Slater, as he described fusarium in several American states.
“The disease has devastated an industry and some producers,” he told a group at a March 25 fusarium head blight seminar here.
Slater, manager of Canadian barley operations for Busch Agricultural Resources, said his company doesn’t look to Manitoba for malting barley anymore because of that province’s problems with fusarium graminearum.
The fungal disease produces a toxin called deoxynivalenol, or DON.
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The brewing company, which has Budweiser on its product list, won’t accept any DON in its beer, although the United States has tolerance standards of one part per million.
“Our industry is fickle and we’re very particular of the physical characteristics that go into our product,” said Slater.
In North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, barley crops also have high infection levels. In those three states barley acres have decreased by 60 percent from 1993, when the disease hit.
Unwilling to take the risk of lower barley grades, many producers opt for other crops.
“Our growers are frustrated and moving away from malting barley production,” said Slater.
There are few strategies for combatting fusarium. Seed treatments and fungicides can be expensive and unreliable, and there are some mysteries surrounding disease transmission.
“The only answer I have is there are no answers. It’s not a good deal. We don’t have a lot of time. We need a quick fix now.”
Slater said the best tool would be barley varieties resistant to fusarium. The malting industry and the U.S. government are putting millions of research dollars into that search.
In Canada, the Prairie Fusarium Task Force, formed in 1997, includes federal, provincial and university researchers trying to fight the disease.
“There is a high collaboration effort to come up with answers,” Slater said.
But until solutions are found, Alberta and Saskatchewan farmers can benefit, said Slater. As American malting barley markets become more scarce, his company looks to the Canadian Prairies for supply.
Before the fusarium disaster in the U.S., the American industry imported five to six million bushels of Prairie six-row malting barley. Now the average is about 30 million.
Brewers buy American supply first so in dry years, when fusarium is less prevalent, it buys less from Canada.
Slater admits it’s hard to encourage Alberta producers to grow six-row barley when the price for two-row is higher. As well, Alberta farmers have many outlets for feed barley if their crop doesn’t make malt.
But Slater said six-row is worth the risk because while 70 percent of two-row barley is typically rejected for malt, only 30 percent of six-row fails the grade.
Glen McRuer of Westcan Malting said since Alberta is largely DON free, supply isn’t a problem for his company.
However, he knows his customers don’t want DON in their beer.
Two-row Harrington, the Canadian malting barley mainstay, is susceptible to fusarium, so he sees the disease as a potential problem.
“We cannot have our heads in the sand. It could be coming this way.”
