Fusarium head blight is a recent, expensive and growing problem in Alberta grain country, says an Agriculture Canada grain researcher.
Kelly Turkington from the Lacombe, Alta., research centre told a national workshop on fusarium Nov. 2 that there is increasing evidence of the grain disease that less than a decade ago was considered a long shot to affect the province.
“There definitely is a greater incidence of it and a greater risk from it all the time,” he said after his presentation.
“It was confidently predicted 10 years ago that it would not be a problem and now it is in the province and spreading.”
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He said farmers have some production and farm management techniques available to combat the disease.
Fusarium head blight is a plant infection that makes some grain so toxic it cannot be used. In other cases, it degrades the quality and value.
It has been in Ontario for decades and appeared in Manitoba in 1993. It has been moving west ever since.
Turkington told the Ottawa workshop the infection now has appeared in the Edmonton area and in the irrigation areas of southern Alberta.
He said that while samples studied on a handful of farms are too limited to produce broad conclusions, there are clear patterns:
- Excess water use in irrigation zones increases fusarium incidence. Use water responsibly.
“Moisture appears to be a critical variable,” he said. “Temperature is not as critical.”
- Producers should seek out more fusarium-resistant varieties.
- For crop rotation, the interval between fusarium host crops in a field should be longer than one year.
- Producers need to be vigilant in checking their crops for fusarium. He said too many farmers make the assumption that fusarium may be their neighbour’s problem but not theirs.
