The province received variable precipitation this spring which had pathologists and producers expecting the arrival of members of the leaf spot complex. However, Kelly Turkington with the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lacombe Research and Development Centre said they may have been scorched by the July heat wave.

That’s no reason for farmers not to scout their fields. A late arrival of stripe rust spores blew into the province in late June, said Turkington. They likely originated in the state of Washington.

“Towards the early part of July there were reports (of stripe rust) out of Warner County and Vulcan County from a consultant and some reports in Lacombe County and then down the Highway Two corridor towards Calgary, both west and east,” he said.

Depending on the point in the season growers seeded, a stripe rust presence in cereal fields may mean a fungicide application, he said. Early-seeded crops may be out of luck from a timing perspective, but producers that seeded later may still have time to tackle the rust.

Those who may still have the chance to spray for stripe rust include those who seeded spring wheat for swath grazing or silage in late May or early June.

“Often we’ve seen in the past our worst stripe rust problems in those late-seeded fields where you might be looking at silage or swath grazing, especially where the variety is highly susceptible,” said Turkington.

Watch Glacier FarmMedia publications for more on this story.

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The latest wind trajectory analysis from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada suggests some crops may be in the risk zone.

The disease has been a problem in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Kansas and Nebraska, according to a June 21 report from the Prairie Crop Disease Monitoring Network.

“Recent stripe rust observations from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin bring the stripe rust issue very close to the Prairies, especially the central to eastern regions,” the network reported, and the pathogen load from the U.S. could get heavier in coming weeks if rain continues.

”This would result in more rust spores being available to be blown into the Prairie region, as well as more northerly rust development into the Dakotas and Minnesota/Wisconsin.”

Why it matters: Wind trajectories indicate whether a rust problem elsewhere on the continent is likely to blow in here.

Conditions reported from June 11-17 are based on reverse trajectories. Those are defined as “air currents that are tracked back in time from specified Canadian locations over a five-day period prior to their arrival date.”

Greater risk of rust occurs if those trajectories track back to infected regions, are close to the ground and if there were rainfall events in the area. All three conditions were present between June 11-16 near Winnipeg and Selkirk, the network noted. In particular, there may have been high risk during the Father’s Day weekend.

Three trajectories, stemming from Oregon, Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, converged on Winnipeg June 15, ranging in altitude between 500 and 1,500 metres. The 25 millimetres of rain that hit Winnipeg over the weekend may have moved spores down and introduced them to crops.

Rainfall

Plants are most at risk from flag leaf to flowering.

According to the June 25 Manitoba Agriculture crop report, winter wheat is advancing quickly. Crops had headed out and flowered, and most fungicide application against fusarium was done. Most spring wheat ranged from the three-leaf stage to stem elongation.

Higher rainfall levels can influence rust development and spread. Almost all of central Manitoba, most of western Manitoba and much of the Interlake had registered over 150 per cent of normal precipitation this season as of June 23, according to Manitoba Agriculture.

Farmers are advised to check their fields, especially if growing susceptible varieties of winter and spring wheat. Most winter wheat varieties are resistant to stripe rust, the network report noted.

AAC Wildfire, one of Manitoba’s most popular winter wheat varieties, is one example. It accounted for 43.2 per cent of seeded winter wheat acres covered by the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation. Emerson, at 22 per cent of acres, is considered moderately resistant.

Those who opted for AC Radiant, CDC Buteo, AAC Elevate, Broadview or CDC Falcon last fall may want to scout. AAC Brandon and AAC Starbuck, Manitoba’s top spring wheat varieties last year, are moderately resistant.

A full list of susceptible and resistant varieties can be found in the 2024 edition of Seed Manitoba.

So far, Manitoba Agriculture has heard some reports of stripe rust on wheat. It can also affect barley and oats.

“Most of our wheat varieties have pretty good resistance to stripe rust, and so do our winter wheat varieties,” said Manitoba Agriculture crop pathologist David Kaminski during a June 26 Crop Talk webinar.

“So even though it’s arrived, a lot of these crops are getting to a stage where the development might not have a big impact on yield.”

Fungicide treatments, if necessary, are best done when the flag leaf has fully emerged, Kaminski said. Later seeded crops should be watched closely, since there’s more time for infection to develop before heading.

Other concerns

Conditions in Manitoba are also favourable for development of tan spot (septoria complex) and bacterial diseases such as bacterial leaf streak and halo blight on oats, Kaminski said.

“We have heard reports from the field and seen pictures of tan spot, which is one of the fungal diseases I have not yet seen or heard a lot about.”

Kaminski is also concerned about fusarium head blight.

“If growers are going to be applying a fungicide, they may want to wait for the timing that’s appropriate for fusarium head blight. That’s more towards when the heads have fully emerged from the boot — a little bit later than the flag leaf stage —rather than going with two different applications.”

If the crop is delayed but disease is already evident, producers may consider a two-time application, Kaminski added.

The Prairie Crop Disease Monitoring Network at prairiecropdisease.com has timely information and disease management strategies.

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Kansas is the top U.S. producer of winter wheat and was the second-largest overall wheat state in 2020 after North Dakota. The United States is normally the world’s No. 2 wheat exporter after Russia.

Scouts travelling in one car on the Wheat Quality Council’s annual Kansas tour sampled seven fields in Dickinson, Saline, Ottawa, Cloud, Mitchell and Osborne counties in north-central Kansas and projected an average yield of 60.5 bushels per acre (bpa). The figure compares to the tour’s 2019 average for cars of the same route of 41.5 bpa.

A second car travelling another route slightly farther south calculated an average yield of 57.6 bpa after five stops, well above the tour’s 2019 average on the same route of 47.8 bpa.

A third car travelling south of the other two routes, crossing the centre of the state, made three stops and calculated yield potential at 54, 74 and 61 bpa.

The Wheat Quality Council tour was not held in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Stripe rust, a fungal disease, could slash yield prospects in fields where farmers did not apply fungicides. Track marks in some fields indicated that some producers had run their sprayers through to mitigate diseases.

“The yield calculations were higher than I was expecting. But my biggest concern is the stripe rust,” said Gary Millershaski, a scout on the tour who farms near Lakin, Kansas, and who is commissioner on the Kansas Wheat Commission.

“Stripe rust is the name of the game. It’s real prevalent,” said Evan Backhus, a grain merchandiser with PureField Ingredients, operator of a wheat protein facility in Russell, Kansas.

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Striped rust has been reported from a winter wheat field; no other plant pathogen activity has been reported.

Stripe rust overwinters in winter wheat

Stripe rust was observed in a winter wheat field near Austin this spring. This field was being monitored by local agronomist, Amber Knaggs, as there were disease issues, including stripe rust, already present last fall. When stripe rust is well-established in the fall and heavy snowfall provides a good insulating layer, the pathogen can overwinter even in harsher climates. Alberta also reported overwintered stripe rust this year, as has been observed in that province in the past.

The disease was detected over a month ago and the field has been continuously monitored this spring. The disease has not progressed much at this point. Stripe rust typically likes cooler weather with adequate moisture available. Growers in the area surrounding this field should scout both their winter and spring wheat to determine whether the infection has spread. If fields are planted to a variety susceptible to stripe rust, infection is present, and the weather remains conducive to the spread of disease an early fungicide application (at the herbicide timing) may be warranted. For growers in the rest of the province, the main source of inoculum for stripe rust (like stem or leaf rust) remains when large spore loads begin to blow up from the southern United States.

It is interesting to note that in the field where stripe rust was observed, the grower had seeded two varieties, CDC Falcon (rated “S” for stripe rust) and Emerson (rated “MR” for stripe rust). The disease was only detected in the areas seeded to CDC Falcon.

Agronomists, Farmers, Farm Production Extension Specialists, Extension coordinators, and others scouting crops: Please remember to send in reports of insects or plant diseases over the growing season so we can make these updates as complete as possible, and alert farmers and agronomists where and to what degree insects and pathogens are of concern or being controlled. Information can be sent to: John Gavloski (entomologist) at John.Gavloski@gov.mb.ca (phone: 204-750-0594) or Holly Derksen (plant pathologist) at Holly.Derksen@gov.mb.ca (phone: 204-750-4248).

Click here to view the complete Manitoba Insect & Disease Update on the Manitoba Agriculture website.

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“It definitely overwintered,” Manitoba Agriculture plant pathologist Holly Derksen said during CropTalk Westman webinar April 19. “It’s too early to have blown in from the southern states. Snow cover basically provides the perfect insulation, especially when you have not terribly cold soil.”

Agronomist Amber Knaggs of Munro Farm Supplies spotted the disease in the field last year and found infection again this spring.

“She (Knaggs) had to look hard for it, but she did find it,” Derksen said.

“We only have the one report and it could be an isolated case.”

Stripe rust prefers cooler weather than some other rusts, she said. It will sporulate at temperatures between zero and 20 C, but prefers 10 to 15 C, Derksen said.

Growers should scout new winter wheat growth to see if the stripe rust is viable enough to spread, she said.

“If the plant is growing faster than the disease is spreading you are probably OK,” Derksen said. “Also scout neighbouring spring wheat fields (once they emerge).”

Winter wheat growers should be scouting for strip rust now, she said. If infection is found contact Derksen (204-750-4248 or holly.derksen@gov.mb.ca).

Farmers with infected fields will be instructed on how to send samples to Reem Aboukhaddour — an Agriculture and Agri-Food plant pathologist studying stripe rust at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre.

Farmers with stripe rust in their area, and who are growing susceptible varieties, should consider applying a fungicide at the time they are spraying herbicides for weeds, but with the following provisos: “Make sure you are scouting and you actually see it out there and consider varietal resistance before you make that fungicide decision,” Derksen said.

The infected field near Austin also had powdery mildew, but Derksen says in most cases the crop will grow out of it.

Wheat streak mosaic virus can also spread from from winter wheat to spring wheat, she said. The best way to avoid this disease is preventing a “green bridge” in fall.

Ideally winter wheat should not be emerge before spring wheat is harvested, or at least swathed or desiccated, Derksen said.

The post Manitoba’s first case of stripe rust near Austin overwintered appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Three agronomists gave an overview of the 2016 cropping season at the SouthWest Agricultural Conference in Ridgetown, outlining challenges and wins for the year.

Leanne Freitag, Cargill’s manager of agronomy for Ontario, outlined challenges with wheat, Steph Kowalski of Agronomy Advantage outlined soybean challenges and Russ Barker of DuPont Pioneer outlined the most unpredictable of 2016 crops: corn.

Ontario had record wheat yields, but that rapidly-growing wheat exposed some crop management gaps.

Freitag said she’s surprised at how many growers don’t apply sulphur on wheat, adding it’s simple to do and inexpensive.

“If you’re putting fertilizer on, make sure sulphur is in there,” she said. As the wheat grew rapidly towards a record yield, more sulphur deficiency symptoms showed up in the Ontario crop.

“Putting on 10-20 lbs. of sulphur is really important, and cheap to put on,” she said.

Where there’s a deficiency, the advantage can be 20 bushels of yield difference, she said. Watch the nitrogen to sulphur ratio: It should be 10:1 to 7:1.

Stripe rust was also an issue in wheat for the first time in memory. The disease overwintered further north than usual, Freitag said, and resulted in more damage than normal.

The greater prevalence of the disease showed which varieties of wheat are resistant and which are not. There is a significant difference, Freitag said, but cautioned not to base variety decisions only on resistance to stripe rust. Plant the best variety for your fields, and spray if required.

“Stripe rust is the biggest yield robber of any of the foliar diseases in wheat,” said Freitag. “It can take 50 per cent or more of your yield.”

Spray when symptoms are seen, she added. “Keeping the flag leaf clean is critical.”

The wheat crop came out of the soft winter with little winter kill, which likely helped the wheat put down roots deep enough that it was able to find enough moisture to pull through the dry summer. Altogether it resulted in a record wheat harvest.

Spider mites everywhere

Soybeans pulled through the summer drought in Ontario in most cases — but not for lack of trying by some insects.

Scouting is the best way to stay ahead of spider mites, Kowalski said. Treat the crop with timely spraying. Be careful what insecticide is used, however, as you don’t want to take out all the beneficial insects, along with the spider mites.

Weed control was a challenge for soybeans in 2016, as there often wasn’t enough moisture to activate pre-emergent herbicides. If the weather is hot and dry, spray early in the morning for systemic herbicides and in the evening for contact herbicides.

Fungicides made sense on soybeans, said Kowalski, as long as you got a timely rain. She says use the whole decisions tree on whether or not to spray fungicides. Don’t just not do it because of weather.

Barker said he worries about blanket recommendations to spray fungicides, due to potential resistance and other overuse issues. “It gives me the heebee-jeebees.”

Good base fertility was important to pulling soybeans through to good yield in 2016.

Unpredictable corn

There were times this growing season that Russ Barker just told farmers to stay out of their corn fields. The fields were just too depressing to visit. He also told them that the fields would yield better than they expected, and he was right about that.

A wise plant breeder once told him that cob size was a poor indicator of potential yield, he said. More important is the depth of kernels and kernel flex. The strongest hybrids will produce a deeper kernel late into the growing season.

“Remember that the growing season is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said.

The response of corn to fungicides is well documented — an average seven to eight bushels per acre advantage, he said. Each farmer has to determine if it makes sense economically on their farm.

Where it does make sense, he said, is on silage corn and corn fed to hogs, as the fungicide reduces mycotoxin load for hogs and dairy farmers need to maximize the quality of feed going into the feed bunk.

Two other unpredicted and especially frustrating problems appeared with the corn harvest last year. The first is the amount of Gibberella ear rot on corn, which surprised the industry by showing up in high levels of infection.

“We’re not a whole lot smarter on Gibberella. We still can’t predict it very well.”

Western bean cutworm (WBC) was also a larger issue as it overwintered further north than usual, and continued its long-term growth into new areas of the province.

The WBC was first seen in Ontario in 2008 and became economically significant in 2010, Freitag said. The problem in 2016 is that it appeared in fields where farmers had scouted and didn’t find egg masses.

“We can’t scout with a high level of assurance that it won’t be an issue,” she said. The industry has to sort out how to monitor for the pest, but the answer likely lies in paying closer attention to trap numbers.

Farmers need to make economic and risk assessment decisions on whether or not to spray for WBC, at least until better biotech solutions for control, such as the Viptera trait, are bred into more widely used hybrids.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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Insects: Insects of highest importance to scout for currently are Lygus bugs in canola and sunflowers, and banded sunflower moths in sunflowers. Only trace levels of soybean aphids have been found so far. Although a couple of traps monitoring adults of bertha armyworm had moderate counts in the Northwest, and a few traps had counts in the uncertain risk range, there have been no reports of high levels of larvae of bertha armyworms so far.

Plant Pathogens: Disease surveys for field crops are progressing rapidly and various diseases continue to be reported.

Disease update

Oilseeds: Sclerotinia is being reported in canola, sunflower and flax.

Canola: Root rots due to Fusarium spp and Rhizoctonia spp were reported at Manitoba Agriculture’s Crop Diagnostic lab. Blackleg is also being reported.

Corn: Common rust was found in low incidence in some corn fields. Goss’s wilt is also being found in some fields.

Soybeans: Sclerotinia, downy mildew and brown spot continue to be reported in soybeans.

Crop stages most sensitive to lygus bugs in canola

It is the early podding stage of canola that are most sensitive to potential damage from Lygus bugs. With adequate soil moisture, plants will compensate well for loss of flowers. It is feeding directly to seeds when the seeds are young that has the highest potential to reduce yields if levels of Lygus bugs are high enough.

At the current value of canola and control costs (assuming about $10.00 / bushel for canola) the economic threshold will be in the range of 10 to 15 Lygus bugs per 10 sweeps when the seeds in the lower pods are enlarging to full-size and translucent. When seeds in the lower pods are green the economic threshold would be about 15 to 20 Lygus bugs in 10 sweeps.

Once canola has reached the R5.3 stage, where seeds in the lower pods are mottled green-brown, the seeds are mature enough that Lygus bugs are no longer considered an economic risk. There are no economic thresholds for Lygus bugs in canola at the R5.3 stage and beyond.

A vigorously growing canola crop can be very difficult to walk through and sweep when it gets into the podding stage. If this is the case, samples can be collected from along the edge or at right angles from the edge of the field. Research has shown that samples taken along the edge of commercial fields and at various distances into the field all gave similar estimates of plant bug density. Sampling along the edge reduces effort during years when thick crop growth impedes access to the field. For edge sampling, the area selected for sampling should be at a crop stage similar to that in the main part of the field.

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However, soggy conditions have also enabled certain disease pressures to rear their ugly head, according to some government specialists.

“Root rot is showing up in peas and lentils,” said Brent Flaten of Saskatchewan Agriculture in Moose Jaw.

In addition to the rot, the fields were also feeling the effects of pythium and water mould (aphanomyces euteiches).

In a few cases, some lentil fields were virtually wiped out, though most are OK — “kind of hit-and-miss depending on how much rain or water the field retained,” he said.

Flaten said he is also fielding questions from producers wondering whether to spray for sclerotinia in canola or leaf diseases.

“There’s probably even more acres where people are worried about (fusarium) head blight or sclerotinia than the root rot.”

Issues are similar in Manitoba, with both fusarium and root rot cited as problems.

However, provincial field crop pathologist Pratisara Bajracharya said there is another familiar name working its way in from the U.S.

“Leaf rust is in some Manitoba locations as well as near the Montana and North Dakota border,” she said.

As a result, Bajracharya is asking producers to scout their fields in the lower canopy to look for both leaf rust as well as stripe rust.

“That is for wheat, barley and small-grain cereal crops,” she said.

Root rot has been an issue for soybeans, while one canola field near Carman, Man. had a bit of blackleg.

“In general, lots of different diseases were showing up this year compared to other years,” she said.

Both specialists agree further rains will only exacerbate the problem.

— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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For now, the immediate challenge before growers is to get out and scout their wheat fields. According to Dale Cowan, senior agronomist with Agris Co-operative, the worst-hit region for stripe rust at week’s end is west of Thamesville in Chatham-Kent, south of Highway 401 and down along the Lake Erie shoreline into Essex County.

This is the region, Cowan said, where the rust spores were first blown in and deposited, and where the disease is most advanced.

But there have been additional sightings farther north, even into Grey and Bruce counties. And no matter where it’s found, growers need to act quickly to avoid significant losses in yield.

“It’s at the point where you want to keep the flag leaf clean because it produces 70 per cent of the yield, and it’s sporulating very quickly and moving very fast,” said Cowan.

“The next stage we’d consider a fungicide would be T3 (head stage), so what we’re advising is that you have to keep the flag leaf clean with a T2 (flag leaf) fungicide.”

The problem began farther south in the U.S. — and Cowan noted it was already 400 miles further north into Kentucky than it normally should have been.

Even for a grower with crops three days away from a head spray (at T3, growth stages 59 to 65), the disease is advancing so quickly that waiting those three days to save money could cost him or her 50 per cent of a field.

In the past three days, Twitter has seen a variety of photos depicting the extent of the spread of the disease. One individual photographed his lower legs and boot tops covered in yellow-orange spores, just from walking through a field. Another shows the soil between rows with the same yellow-orange colouration.

“Once the flag leaf is gone, you’re going to take a 50 to 60 per cent yield hit,” said Cowan. “If you don’t spray the flag leaf now and you’re going to wait for T3, there’ll be nothing worth protecting even three or four days from now. If you’re a week away from heading, you have to make two passes through the field or you just won’t have anything worth spraying at T3.”

The fungicides a grower would use for T1 (tiller) or T2 (flag leaf) cannot be used if the awns are showing or the heads emerging, Cowan warned. Those particular fungicides carry a strobilurin, which will increase levels of deoxynivalenol (DON) — and the risk of DON infection is extremely high, as well.

“We have this situation where we have rust, where we can lose half our yield, or DON, which will make the crop unsalable,” Cowan said, adding that neither is a great option.

“Those are your two choices, so you can’t just sit there and ignore this crop because you won’t have a wheat crop if you’re badly infected. And the first step is you have to get out and scout your fields!”

— Ralph Pearce is a field editor for Country Guide at St. Marys, Ont. Follow him at @arpee_ag on Twitter.

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The diseases, which generally target cereal crops, were thought to have blown up from the northern U.S. in late spring. Fields near Carman and Killarney both tested positive for rust in winter and spring wheat.

Recent warm weather, however, appears to have dealt the two rusts a deadly blow.

“Not with this heat — rust doesn’t enjoy 30 C days, even though we’ve had precipitation; it’s just been too hot,” said Pam de Rocquigny of Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development in Carman.

She credited producers in the affected areas for scouting fields and applying fungicides where needed, as the main reasons for the diseases’ departure.

The ag department’s focus now shifts to fusarium head blight, she said, as now is the time the crops traditionally show symptoms.

“Usually about 21 days after flowering — that’s when you start to see the symptoms on the wheat heads,” she said.

Already, a few stands of winter wheat have exhibited signs of fusarium.

Infection generally occurs at the flowering stage, so the timeline for applying fungicide for suppression has passed, de Rocquigny said.

“But we haven’t sampled enough fields yet. We expect to know more in a week or so.”

— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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