The winter wheat harvest began in Manitoba last week but overall crop quality will likely be poor due to high rates of fusarium head blight in the province.
“It’s certainly one of the worst years that we’ve seen, with respect to fusarium in winter wheat,” said Andy Tekauz, senior research scientist at Agriculture Canada’s Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg.
Tekauz and other scientists conducted field surveys in July and determined that the fusarium index averages 13 percent across the province.
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The fusarium index is the percentage of disease incidence multiplied by the percent severity/100. If 20 percent of heads have the disease and 90 percent of the head is infected, that would equal a FHB index of 18 percent.
In a typical year, the fusarium index in winter wheat is two or three percent, Tekauz said.
“Four years out of five, winter wheat essentially escapes most of the damage (caused by) fusarium head blight,” he said.
“This happened in 2005. That was the last time that I can recall where the severity was considerably higher than in spring wheat,” said Tekauz, who noted the fusarium index for winter wheat in Manitoba was 14 percent in 2005.
Plant scientists at the Cereal Research Centre are weeks away from releasing the results of their spring wheat surveys. Tekauz believes the index will be normal for Manitoba, probably around seven percent.
Jeannie Gilbert, a colleague of Tekauz at the Cereal Research Centre, said foliar fungicides have reduced the severity of fusarium in spring wheat in Manitoba.
“It seems as though there’s been a fairly wide use of fungicide. So the overall levels and severities (have been) somewhat mitigated.”
In a more typical year, fusarium impacts spring wheat more than winter wheat. But not this year.
“When it (winter wheat) flowered, there was enough moisture around that the possibility for infection was there,” Tekauz said.
Unlike spring wheat, most winter wheat planted in Manitoba has poor resistance to fusarium, which is why it flourishes despite the use of fungicide.
Fusarium is causing most of its damage in the eastern half of the province, including the area east of the Red River.
“People (are) saying they’re seeing quite a bit in their fields, even if they have been sprayed,” said Brent Reid, a crop production adviser with Manitoba Agriculture in Dugald.
Winter wheat fields east of Portage la Prairie have probably been the hardest hit.
The fusarium index in that part of Manitoba is around 16 to 18 percent, Tekauz said.
