A new labelling system now tells growers which strain of blackleg resistance their canola variety has.
“The idea is not to use that same strain of blackleg resistance repeatedly,” said Canola Council of Canada agronomist Keith Gabert. “If you can rotate blackleg resistance and we can tell you what resistance your previous variety had and what resistance your next variety has as well, we can make sure they don’t match and that, by rotating it, the varieties essentially show no symptoms.”
In Gabert’s territory of central Alberta, the best place to find blackleg is to “find a grower who had a favoured variety and grew it eight to 12 years on a two-year rotation.”
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“If he started with a little bit of blackleg, by the third or fourth time he’s grown that same variety, he could have quite a problem by the time he’s done,” said Gabert.
In the past, growers were advised to change varieties, not really knowing whether they were actually changing their blackleg resistance.
“Now we can get him to change varieties and know that he’s changing his blackleg resistance,” he said. “It’s on the bag now. Ask your retailer and your seed supplier.”
