Soil testing increased | At least three new counties have identified clubroot in fields for the first time
It was only a matter of time before clubroot spread its knobby roots into central Alberta.
It has been confirmed in three fields in Stettler County this fall. As well, two more cases have been added to the case discovered in Red Deer County last year. And, Flagstaff County officials have added another six confirmed fields to their tally of 10 found in previous years.
“If you look hard enough, you’ll find it,” said Art Preachuk, Red Deer County’s agricultural manager.
The news cases mean it is no longer a disease that only farmers near Edmonton need to worry about.
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As of last year, more than 800 fields across Alberta had tested positive for clubroot since its discovery in 2003. New fields confirmed in 2012 will be added to the provincial list at the end of harvest.
Officials have sent letters to every grain farmer in Red Deer County encouraging them to be on the lookout for clubroot in their fields.
The letter includes detailed photographs, scouting guidelines and links to websites detailing clubroot and its devastating consequences.
“I don’t think people should not know what we speak of when we talk of clubroot,” Preachuk said.
“Sending this out to 1,000 producers, we feel, gets direct to them better than 50 or 100 people at a meeting.”
Canola cannot be grown on a field in the county for at least four years once clubroot is discovered there.
Preachuk said county employees are looking at fields and entrances to fields where the positive cases were discovered.
“We’re giving it as much attention as we can, but it’s still like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Quinton Beaumont, director of agricultural services with Stettler County, said the county can no longer say it is clubroot free.
“It’s in our county,” said Beaumont.
The farmer who discovered the disease asked county staff to confirm its identity.
Beaumont said until the discovery, the county surveyed one field in every township of land. That has since increased to eight fields in every township where clubroot has been detected.
Farmers in Stettler County cannot grow canola on clubroot land for at least five years. After that, they can grow canola only once in every four years and must grow only clubroot resistant varieties.
“Farms are growing and the sheer distance farmers travel to seed, I think it was only a matter of time before it was found,” he said.
Laurie Hillaby, agricultural fieldman with Flagstaff County, said six more cases of clubroot were added to the 10 positive cases discovered in the central Alberta county.
“I expected to find a whole bunch more than we did,” said Hillaby.
Murray Hartman, Alberta Agriculture’s provincial oilseed specialist, said he has no firm number on how many new fields have tested positive for clubroot. Scouting is still underway.
At least three new counties have identified clubroot in fields for the first time, he said.
“Am I surprised? No,” Hartman said. “As you get more and more infestations in fields and canola grown on every second acre, it’s logical we will find new infestations.”
Reports of sightings have mostly come from counties where it has been found in the past, as well as neigh-bouring counties.
Hartman has not heard reports of clubroot from the Peace River area or southern Alberta.
Brent Flaten, integrated pest management specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, said the ministry is watching the clubroot situation in Alberta closely.
Three confirmed cases of low levels of clubroot have been discovered in three different fields in the province, but none had symptoms that showed up on the canola plant above ground.
“We just happened to catch the root symptoms,” said Flaten, who added the province is surveying fields for the disease and taking soil DNA samples to see if it can identify the soil borne disease.
“We could have more of it, we just don’t know about it,” said Flaten.
Manitoba oilseed specialist Anastasia Kubinec said no visual signs of clubroot have shown up this season.
Last year, two soil samples tested positive for clubroot but came back negative when they were retested. Samples from 100 fields will be tested and analyzed for clubroot as part of this year’s surveillance program.
“As of right now, we do not have any known clubroot symptomology in our clubroot,” said Kubinec.
“As far as I know, we have no confirmed cases of clubroot on plants.”
