Verticillium stripe has become more prevalent in canola and is not easy to recognize because symptoms mimic other diseases like blackleg or sclerotinia. It’s important for farmers to familiarize themselves with the disease, as it’s expected to become a greater issue moving forward.

WHY IT MATTERS: Tracking historical trends in crop diseases in Alberta can give farmers a head start in preventative measures for present growing seasons.

“It’s here, and it’s going to get worse,” said Michael Harding, crop assurance program lead at Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, in his disease update for 2025 at the Irrigated Crop Production Update in Lethbridge, Alta.

Segwaying into stripe rust, it has a hard time surviving in open conditions with little snow cover paired with cold temperatures. But, Mother Nature has a way of changing her mind.

“Based on the forecast, I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of stripe rust overwintering in southern Alberta. But, anywhere that there’s snow pack and mild winter conditions, it could survive. So we should keep an eye out for it showing up, and if it shows up early, it could be a real problem, especially in susceptible cultivars,” said Harding.

A dedicated head survey in 2025 showed out of 287 wheat fields processed so far, 28 tested positive for ergot, with the near 10 per cent ratio high compared to previous years.

In one sample, 1.4 per cent of the grain by weight consisted of ergot bodies, indicating a severe problem in that field.

“That is horrible. That sample was a 580 gram sample, and it had over 500 ergot bodies in it. So ergot was a real problem in some fields this year,” said Harding.

The survey is ongoing, with about 300 out of 450 total fields for wheat and barley processed. The final results will be released when the analysis is complete.

“That’s a lot of ergot bodies that are getting returned to the soil at harvest. So there could be some fields that have a lot of ergot. You don’t want to grow an ergot susceptible crop in a field that had lots of it in 2025,” said Harding.

For pulse growers of lentils and peas, if you are seeing root rot and it is getting worse, he recommended finding out if you are dealing with aphanomyces or fusarium or both.

“You are going to march to the drum of the aphanomyces. If it is there, you need to manage the field. When you do that you will also be managing fusarium, so it’s a good idea to do testing,” said Harding.

In 2025, 395 canola fields in Alberta were visited, striving for one per cent of canola acres in every county. There were 98 per cent which showed black-leg symptoms, with 44 per cent of plants affected.

Clubroot was found in eight per cent of fields and two per cent of plants. Sclerotinia affected almost half the fields and eight per cent of plants. Verticillium was minimal at just under one per cent in fields and only a few positive plants.

Zooming the microscope tighter to southern Alberta where irrigated crops are most common, the scouting area featured 90 fields. Black leg was more prominent in southern Alberta fields, but less sclerotinia to go with no club root or verticillium being found in southern Alberta fields.

“We do have irrigated fields in southern Alberta that have club root (historically), but not that many, and it’s really not spreading nearly as quickly in southern Alberta as it is in the other parts of the province,” said Harding.

About 95 per cent of 250 wheat fields surveyed in Alberta in 2025 showed some leaf spot symptoms and 35 per cent of the plants. On average, around 11 per cent of the flag leaf area was covered by leaf spot, with Harding noting some fields had much higher severity.

Stripe rust was found in 5.6 per cent of fields during the initial survey shortly after heading, but spread to 50 per cent of fields in southern Alberta by August.

“When striped rust shows up, it can spread really quickly. We went back about three weeks after this survey and looked at the same fields. The cultivars that had good resistance, you barely can find the stripe and then the susceptible varieties, some of them were devastated by this disease. But, it did show up late enough that it in lot of fields, it wasn’t that big of an issue,” said Harding.

Powdery mildew, wheat streak mosaic and bacterial leaf streak were also observed, with wheat streak mosaic found in just over eight per cent and bacterial leaf streak in four per cent of fields.

The prevalence of these diseases was similar in southern Alberta, though the severity (per cent diseased flag leaf area) was almost half that of the provincial average.

In historical disease trends, the most commonly-occurring disease in canola is black leg, followed by sclerotinia.

“In some years, that’s the second most common. In some years, it’s almost the least common depending on how much rainfall we get, usually around July,” said Harding.

In wheat, fungal leaf spots such as tan spot and septoria are by far the most common. Bacterial leaf streak and wheat streak mosaic have also appeared prominently in some years.

In barley, fungal leaf spots including scald and net blotch are consistently the most widespread. Loose smut and stripe rust are also present.

In pulses, root rot is the most frequently found disease in both pea and lentil fields. Other diseases such as chocolate spot and Alternaria blight are notable in faba bean.

Fusarium has been present as the most consistently common disease in garlic, with Aster yellows and stem and bulb nematode rising in prominence more recently.

Harding encouraged farmers to use disease scouting cards, the Prairie Crop Disease Monitoring Network and the Canada Canola Council of Canada as resources to help battle crop-specific diseases.

The post A look at disease prevalence in Alberta crops in 2025 appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The big four diseases right now are:

• blackleg

• verticillium stripe

• clubroot

• Sclerotinia

WHY IT MATTERS: Growers can sometimes ignore early signs of disease in their fields until it is too late.

“You tend to react fairly rapidly to insects, things that move and crawl and kind of get your attention, but diseases kind of sneak up on us,” said Gabert at Alberta Canola’s grower engagement meeting in Stony Plain, Alta., in November.

Gabert said he likes growers to have a good idea of what their canola looks like in the field, particularly at the end of the season, and get feedback on how their crop yielded.

Healthy canola stems should look clean and white, with no fungal or disease growth plugging them up.

He said the inside of the canola stand should look clean, green and healthy, and if it doesn’t look like that, then a grower may have a problem.

By pulling a canola stem, growers can check for all four major diseases.

“It takes five to 10 minutes in the field to give you a good idea of what you’re looking at,” Gabert said.

Last year was dry, and since there was no rain during harvest, growers are going into the winter dry.

“We’re coming into the year with some uncertainty, the same as the year we came out of,” he said.

Genetics and seed treatment can make a big difference in fighting disease and insects.

Gabert told growers at the meeting that their crop will talk to them, and they must be prepared to listen to it.

“But as I move into what I call the big four diseases, I just want to dwell on the fact that whether you can identify specific things is not important,” he said.

“The important thing that I convince you is to cut into those stems,” Gabert said.

This simple test will check for clubroot, blackleg and verticillium stripe.

Growers can take unhealthy canola to their seed retailer, who should be able to identify problems.

Blackleg

“The best way to get a bad blackleg infestation is to have a favourite variety and grow it about six times in the same field. Now chances are that’s a wheat-canola rotation and it’s taken you a dozen years, and your variety or hybrid probably changed in that time,” he said.

“A decade ago, we did have a couple varieties that lasted that long, and that tended to be where we saw blackleg infestations.”

“While our genetics are good, disease will find a find a way to get around genetics.”

Gabert said fields with blackleg problems have stubble pieces with little black peppery spots on them. These are spore bodies that throw up spores for blackleg to infest the next crop. The best time to look for blackleg is after swathing or straight cutting.

There have been a few genetically resistant varieties of canola for blackleg, but resistance has broken down over the years. Growers with blackleg problems should change their resistance groups. If a grower picks a variety with the same or weaker blackleg resistance package, they should be aware that blackleg can cause a big yield loss.

“Farmers don’t use this tool very often, but you can take those same stubble pieces that you’ve been cutting and looking at and see if they’re clean. If they’re not clean, collect up a dozen of them and send them to someplace like 20/20 Seed Labs and they will resistance test them and tell you what race of blackleg is infecting those plants,” he said.

To scout for blackleg, growers should cut at the junction of the root in the stem and look for clean white tissue. Gabert said he cuts two-and-a-half inches lower than he used to for blackleg.

Blackleg is an airborne disease.

Verticillium stripe

Verticillium stripe, a relatively new disease, is a soil-borne disease caused by microsclerotia that live in the soil and plug the stem of the canola.

The disease has significant symptoms. There is shredding almost like Sclerotinia on the stem, black peppery microsclerotia and microspore bodies that carry the disease forward in the soil. The soil will look bleached and ugly.

“It’s been around about 10 years, really taking a bite out of Manitoba’s canola yields,” Gabert said.

However, he hasn’t seen severe symptoms of the disease in Alberta. In Manitoba, growers have found disease can take away about 20 per cent of their yield.

He said the best way to manage verticillium stripe disease is to manage blackleg aggressively, because both diseases do similar things in the stem. When the two diseases are found at the same time, the impact is more pronounced.

A little verticillium stripe will not have the same impact on canola if blackleg is not present.

Verticillium stripe discolours the stem, plugs the xylem and inhibits the transport of nutrients and water in the stem of the canola. Verticillium stripe grows from the bottom up, so it’s a good idea to cut two inches into the root.

“Sometimes you’ll find that gray fungal growth or evidence of some plugging further down in the roots than you normally would for blackleg,” he said.

“It’s easy to do the two. The take home message is you’re looking for clean white tissue in the root.”

Verticillium stripe plugs much less than blackleg. When it plugs the stem, it appears in more of a starburst pattern.

“If you’re really lucky and you start cutting in the roots far down, you can actually follow which root brought it into the main stem,” he said.

Clubroot

Clubroot is still a problem, and scouting for it is best done after swathing. It doesn’t take many spores to cause a clubroot infection.

“You’ll probably have both white galls and some brown, older, mature galls that look like peatmoss falling off,” he said.

“If you don’t have roots on your canola that look normal, and maybe you’ve lost some of the root hairs when you pull them up, there’s a good chance that clubroot has digested or used or abused some of those roots.”

If clubroot is in a root, it will hijack the system, make its own home and widen portions of the roots further down.

Gabert said growers should get down on the ground and pull canola stems to check for clubroot, rather than assuming a field is bad once damage can be seen from the truck.

“By the time it’s thinned out, and visibly wilting on a hot summer day, you’ve got a lot of galls and lots of seed and a lot of spores,” he said.

There are a few weedy relatives of canola like shepherd’s purse and stink weed that are susceptible and can carry clubroot. Many Chinese vegetables like Chinese cabbages, bok choy and gai lan (Chinese broccoli) are brassicas and can also get clubroot. They are commonly grown around the world.

Gabert said the take-home message for clubroot is to keep it low and local. Seed spore on the fields should be kept low, and there should be at least a two-year break between canola varieties. Ninety per cent of the spores or seed for clubroot die in that first two years.

“If you’re on a one-in-three rotation, only 10 per cent of those spores will still be available. If you’re at a relatively low clubroot infestation and 90 per cent of those spores die, that’s not a lot of pressure for the genetics to try to deal with in your field. If you’re in a dead spot, and 90 per cent of way too many clubroot spores die, you probably still have way too many spores in those patches, if that’s the case. That will be some significant pressure on those resistance genetics that you use,” he said.

Gabert encouraged growers to manage the resistance available in seed varieties, and don’t let clubroot take over.

Patch management also helps.

If a grower finds a clubroot patch about the size of a large table in their resistant variety, they should go into the patch, pull out roots, toss the plants in a garbage bag and send it off to a landfill. That will get rid of a lot of spores in a hurry.

Having grass in the entry way to a field can also cut down on clubroot establishment, he said.

Sclerotinia

Gabert said many people feel sclerotinia is not a problem, when in fact, it’s still a big problem.

“I would like to think that this is a disease that can take the top end off a good crop,” he said.

“If you’ve got a yield potential of 40 bushels or more and a crop canopy that can stay wet, chances are that Sclerotinia can be an issue. It’s one of those break-even propositions most of the time.”

Frequently, when producers spray for Sclerotinia, they will get the cost of their fungicide and application back.

“You’re not going to be too excited about spending that much time in the sprayer. But on the odd year, especially when we used to swath, you’ll find big batches of sections of the field that just go poof. The stems have been digested. The seed hasn’t set in there. And you’ll pay for three to four years of application or maybe more in that single year,” Gabert said.

“Managing sclerotinia aggressively is important in my books, relatively simple, and we do have some good genetic tolerance from at least one of our seed suppliers.”

Gabert said additional information about diseases is available from the Alberta Canola Producers Commission. The Canola Council of Canada has a newsletter called Canola Watch that is a good source of information for producers.

The post Scouting for disease in canola crops appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Using available videos, graphics and explanations to clarify the key blackleg resistance concepts can help farmers with proactive decision-making for maximum disease management.

Browsing a few research findings can also upgrade your knowledge of the host-pathogen dynamic.

To learn more, have a look at this Canola Council of Canada video on mitigating blackleg in canola.

The post Learn more about blackleg management in canola appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Reports out of Europe suggest the fungal disease could cause losses of 10 to 50 percent on oilseed rape. However, extreme losses are usually confined to a small number of fields in England and northern Europe.

University of Alberta scientists will soon publish a Canadian estimate to nail down what verticillium means for yield.

“We were the ones who gave the blackleg yield loss model … and the clubroot yield loss model,” said Sheau-Fang Hwang, a plant pathologist with the U of A. “So, everyone expects we will … (provide) the verticillium yield loss model.”

Hwang and her colleagues hoped to release their results this year, but publication will be delayed until 2024.

Verticillium stripe is a relatively new disease for canola growers in Western Canada. It was first discovered in 2014 near Winnipeg.

The fungus, Verticillium longisporum, infects canola and produces tiny, pepper-like sclerotia on or inside the stem of the plant. The sclerotia fall on the soil and into crop stubble after harvest. The small particles move with wind and water to other locations. Farmers can also pick up the fungus on their equipment and boots and transport it to other fields.

The infection interferes with the uptake of water and nutrients. Symptoms include early ripening, plant stunting and leaf chlorosis and shredding or striping of the stem tissue. The symptoms usually appear later in the growing season.

“Looking for verticillium, you have to slough off that outer stem wall … to reveal the micro-sclerotia. That’s a really key (part) of diagnosis,” said Justine Cornelsen, agronomic and regulatory services manager with BrettYoung Seeds and a former agronomist with the Canola Council of Canada.

On the Prairies, verticillium is most common in Manitoba, where it appeared in 40 percent of canola fields in 2022.

“In Manitoba, we don’t talk much about clubroot. We talk about verticillium,” said Cornelsen, who lives near Virden, Man.

The disease is also spreading across Saskatchewan. It was detected in dozens of eastern Saskatchewan fields in 2022 and in other regions this summer.

Earlier this year, Hwang authored a paper saying verticillium is a significant threat to canola production in Canada. When verticillium and blackleg are present in the same field, the two fungal diseases seem to join forces.

“(When) inoculated together in field and greenhouse experiments, blackleg severity and yield losses increased relative to when (the blackleg pathogen) was applied on its own. The severity of verticillium stripe also tended to increase,” says the 2023 paper, published in Plants.

“The results suggest that the interaction between (blackleg and verticillium) may cause more severe losses in canola.”

Cornelsen has been keeping a close eye on verticillium since it first appeared in Manitoba a decade ago.

She’s learned that some of the normal rules for crop diseases don’t apply to verticillium.

For one, verticillium thrives in hot and dry conditions. Most diseases prefer hot and humid.

“Once it gets into the plant (under) those hot and dry conditions … that pathogen is growing up through the vascular system,” she said.

“When you don’t have a bunch of rainfall, it’s able to move (through the plant) and make the symptoms more severe.”

Rain and excess moisture seem to prevent verticillium damage to canola plants.

It’s possible that crop scouts have failed to detect verticillium in the past because its symptoms are more noticeable just before or after harvest.

“That 60 per cent seed colour change, (the) typical timing for disease survey, isn’t the right timing to look for verticillium,” Cornelsen said. “It’s likely, for years, been misdiagnosed as something like blackleg.”

However, it appears that some canola varieties do have resistance to the disease.

University of Manitoba researchers have found that hybrids — in the market or in the development pipeline — are resistant or moderately resistant.

Some seed companies now promote certain hybrids in their lineup as having some degree of resistance to verticillium.

Genetic resistance in commercial canola hybrids could be preventing “drastic” yield losses at the field level in Western Canada, Cornelsen said.

– Robert Arnason is a reporter for The Western Producer.

The post Researchers study verticillium yield losses appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

DeKalb’s DKTF 92 SC and DKTF 94 CR will not be available for 2020, Bayer said. Canola growers who have already booked those seeds for this spring are now asked to talk to their local sales reps or retailers about suitable replacements.

“Last season proved to be a challenging environment for Canadian growers across the board,” Bayer said in a release Wednesday. “Some expressed concerns about the performance of these two hybrids in particular, while others saw these hybrids perform as expected.

“Ultimately this inconsistent performance did not meet Bayer’s expectations.”

The company said it ran side-by-side trials with other DeKalb TruFlex canolas and confirmed “the inconsistent yield results were limited to these two hybrids,” while “all other TruFlex canola, straight cut and clubroot hybrids performed to expectation.”

Separately on Twitter, the company said it would recommend DKTF 96 or 75-65 RR to replace DKTF 92 SC, while a TruFlex canola clubroot hybrid is “an alternative” for DKTF 94 CR.

DKTF 92 SC was announced in 2018 for use in the 2019 growing season, and was billed as having “improved pod strength for straight cutting” plus “very good combining ease and multigenic, R-rated blackleg resistance.”

DKTF 94 CR was also first made available to growers for the 2019 season and was billed as having resistance to five clubroot pathotypes (3, 2, 5, 6 and 8) plus an R rating for blackleg.

DeKalb promoted both TruFlex varieties as offering growers “a wider (herbicide) application window, with up to as many as 14 more days, without sacrificing yield potential.”

The two varieties’ herbicide tolerance packages were also marketed as allowing growers to control 51 weed species, “24 more than the Genuity Roundup Ready canola system.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post DeKalb pulls two ‘inconsistent’ canolas off market appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We’re working closely with Canadian farmers and Canadian industry,” Freeland said in a brief interview after speaking at the Canadian Crops Convention (CCC) here Wednesday.

“Our embassy is very focused on this in Beijing right now. We’re talking to our partners right now — other countries. It is a very important issue for us. It’s important to take a bit of time to get all the facts, but I do want your readers and Canadian farmers to rest assured that we take it very seriously.

“It might also be worth saying that in the past 24 hours my colleagues, (Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister) Marie-Claude Bibeau, (International Trade Diversification Minister and Manitoba MP) Jim Carr, (Public Safety Minister and Saskatchewan MP) Ralph Goodale and I have been focused on this.”

News broke Tuesday that Richardson’s registration to ship canola to China was cancelled. China is Canada’s biggest canola customer accounting for about 40 per cent of Canada’s canola exports worth $2.5 billion.

CBC News reported Wednesday a Chinese official said Richardson’s canola exports were blocked for being substandard — an allegation Richardson, Canada’s largest grain company, disputes.

However, if that is the problem, Chinese and Canadian regulators should be be able to quickly fix it, Jean-Marc Ruest, Richardson’s senior vice-president of corporate affairs and general counsel, said in an interview Wednesday.

Richardson has exported Canadian canola to China for decades and has never had its shipments blocked, he said.

“We looked at the notice of non-compliance that were issued and quite frankly didn’t understand how they could possibly stand up,” Ruest said.

“Our test samples quite frankly didn’t show the same things as what they were suggesting were the issues. So you put that together and say it’s not a quality issue, it’s not a technical issue, then what can it be? And we can surmise.”

Asked if he suspects China’s actions are related to Canada detaining Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou at at the request of the U.S. government on charges of bank and wire fraud, Ruest replied: “Well that’s obviously one of the issues out there.”

While Freeland didn’t say what might be motivating China, she endorsed the quality of Canadian canola while speaking at the convention, the first combined meeting of the Canaola Council of Canada and Canada Grains Council.

“I do want to say when it comes to the quality issues I have tremendous confidence in the quality of Canadian canola,” said Freeland, who grew up on a farm near Peace River, Alta. “I am very proud to feed my kids with food made with Canadian canola. I am very comfortable about that and I think we all are. We’re prepared to work through issues and answer questions and I really just want to say this is something we need to tackle together and move on.

“We have a great charge d’affaires in Jim Nickel (in Beijing). He grew up in small-town Saskatchewan so he also understands our rural industries really well and he and the embassy have been focusing today on getting information about what is the actual issue. It’s really important for us to gather as much information as we can before drawing conclusions. And we just have to be united as a country and really work through this.”

In the past China has slowed imports of Canadian canola, expressing concerns it might contain blackleg, a fungal disease that can reduce canola and rapeseed yields. Canola industry officials suspect it was an attempt to bolster Chinese rapeseed prices.

“It seems when we get to four and half tonnes of (canola) export to China historically there has always been a red flag thrown up,” Canadian Canola Growers Association CEO Rick White said in an interview here Tuesday.

“I don’t think this is related to blackleg at all.

“In the past we have listened to their concerns and found ways to say that’s not a real concern at the end of a day.”

Chinese complaints about Canadian canola, and not just from Richardson, have been building the last few months, Ruest said.

“Exporters are facing more risk and are more reluctant to demand canola at high values from growers,” Canola Council of Canada vice-president Brian Innes said during an interview on the sidelines of the CCC.

Viterra CEO Kyle Jeworski declined to say whether his company’s canola exports to China have been disrupted.

“I think the important thing when we talk about China is it’s an industry issue that we all take very seriously and for us we’re working with the canola council to make sure we look at steps moving forward,” he told reporters after speaking to the CCC. “We’re confident in our quality supply of our canola into China. I think that’s an important message.”

But farmers should be concerned because China is such an important canola market, he added.

During his formal remarks Jeworski said it’s important for Canada’s agriculture sector to pull together.

“I am a big believer when you have an issue like we’ve got with China that is an industry issue,” he said. “That’s not a single company issue. That’s an industry issue. And you need a strong industry voice to deal with issues like that.

“Individual companies and governments working alone I think is ineffective. I think it’s important that we the bring the collective strength of our industry together and the collective knowledge of our industry to push to resolve issue like that.”

Ruest agreed. “When we went into this we wanted to make clear this isn’t just a Richardson specific issue for Richardson to figure out,” he said. “It is a wider issue and to date we are very pleased with the support we have received from a number of people who have reached out, not the least of which is the federal government and the way they have reacted to this we’ve been very pleased.”

The Canola Council of Canada, in a statement Wednesday, said it’s working with the industry and government to “to clarify issues raised by our Chinese customers and resolve concerns as quickly as possible.”

“As the government of Canada has stated, we’re confident in the quality of Canadian canola exports and our quality assurance systems.”

China still has a strong demand for Canadian canola and “Canada remains a reliable and sustainable supplier of food for China,” the council said.

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator based at Miami, Man. Follow him at @allanreporter on Twitter.

The post Canada working to end China’s canola block, Freeland says appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

But according to a senior Richardson official it’s in retaliation to the diplomatic spat between China and Canada over the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese tech firm Huawei, at the request of U.S. government, which seeks her extradition on charges of bank and wire fraud.

“Richardson has been directly targeted,” Jean-Marc Ruest, Richardson’s senior vice-president of corporate affairs, told CBC News on Tuesday. “We think this is part of a larger Canada-China issue, and we hope it gets resolved expeditiously.”

A Richardson official confirmed Ruest was quoted correctly.

Ruest was not available later Tuesday for an interview with the Manitoba Co-operator. But Ruest told CBC Richardson doesn’t believe China’s actions are related to its past efforts to restrict Canadian canola imports over concerns the dockage harbours the canola fungal disease blackleg.

“In regards to any issue of quality, we disagree with the Chinese allegations,” Ruest told CBC. “The Canadian government respects and supports our position, and the quality of our product, at the same time.”

That message was reiterated by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.

“We do not think there is any scientific basis for this,” Freeland told reporters Tuesday.

Like Richardson, the Canadian Canola Growers Association (CCGA), which speaks for Canada’s 43,000 canola growers, wants a quick end to China’s ban on canola imports via Richardson.

“We are as growers very, very concerned that this disruption is taking place,” CCGA CEO Rick White told reporters here Tuesday. “What we’re really concerned about is how do we get back on track with China. The demand is there, the product is good. There’s nothing wrong with it. In fact it’s the world’s healthiest vegetable oil.”

Canada produces around 21 million tonnes of canola a year and exports about 4.5 million tonnes to China, he said.

“It’s a big problem because it’s just a big market,” White said. “It is one that we rely heavily on and we’re talking it very, very seriously. At the end of the day we’ll just have to figure it out as a country and an industry… but hopefully it gets solved much sooner rather than later.”

Canola Council of Canada president Jim Everson agrees. China accounts for about 40 per cent of Canada’s canola seed, oil and meal exports, which last year were worth around $10 billion, he said.

The council will work with the Canadian government to try and get China to resume canola imports from Richardson, Everson said.

Last year Richardson withdrew from helping the council with its core funding.

“I think it’s really important, and the position we would take, of course, would be on behalf of the whole industry whether or not they are a member or a funder of the council,” Everson said.

Canola exports to China have slowed a bit in recent months, he said.

“We’re very concerned about this and that there is an increased frequency of these issues,” Everson said.

“I am very confident that Canadian exporters are exporting product that is high quality and meets the requirements of the Chinese.”

Everson is also concerned China might target other Canadian canola exporters.

“The fundamentals of the market are still there in my mind,” he said. “We are expanding our production of excellent quality canola and we had a good trading relationship up until recently with China. They have been taking larger quantities of oil, meal and seed. And they have a growing demand for canola in the marketplace.”

— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator based at Miami, Man. Follow him at @allanreporter on Twitter.

The post China’s block on canola seen as blowback from diplomatic spat appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

• Read more: Canola producers get two new tools in the fight against blackleg

A two-part label will first list the overall resistance: R (resistant), MR (moderately resistant), MS (moderately susceptible), or S (susceptible). The second part of the label has one or more letters that signify the major resistance gene. There are currently 10 groups (A, B, C, D, E1, E2, F, G, H, and X).

A simple lab test of infected plants can determine which strain of blackleg is present in a field, allowing producers to choose the right resistant variety.

The document can be found at the Alberta Canola Producers website.

The post Understanding canola-resistance labels appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Blackleg wasn’t a real concern even a few years ago, but now it’s becoming increasingly important,” said Stephen Strelkov, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Alberta. “This can allow us to relate back to how disease levels correspond to yield loss numbers and to quantify the importance of blackleg in particular years.”

The first is a yield loss model that estimates the production that can be expected based on the severity of the disease in their fields.

“This is the first blackleg yield loss model that has been developed for Western Canada,” said Strelkov.

Over the course of three years at multiple locations, his team grew canola cultivars that were either susceptible, moderately resistant, or resistant to blackleg. They then rated the severity of the disease on a scale of one to five.

Unsurprisingly, there was “quite a straightforward relationship” between disease severity and yield losses, he said.

“As blackleg severity increases, the pod number and seed yield decreased in a linear fashion,” he said. “When we did the analysis over multiple site years, we found with the susceptible check that, for each unit increase in disease severity (on the one to five scale), there was a 17 per cent decline in yield.”

And (again unsurprisingly), the yield losses were significantly higher in the susceptible varieties, he added.

“Blackleg severity was lower and seed yield was over 120 per cent greater in moderately resistant and resistant varieties versus the susceptible checks.”

The Canola Council of Canada is now using the model to determine how economically important blackleg is to Canada’s canola sector. The hope is it will give producers a tool that accurately estimates losses so they can “make informed crop management decisions,” Strelkov said.

“It’s not predicting whether or not there’s going to be blackleg. It’s not a risk model. But it’s useful to know that if you have X amount of disease, it’s going to cost X amount in yield loss.”

Blackleg race test

The second new tool will make it easier for producers to match the race of blackleg in their field with the resistance in the varieties they choose.

“Over the last decade or so, our understanding of the genetics involved in the interaction between the fungal pathogen for blackleg and canola has really leapt forward,” said Nick Larkan, a researcher at Armatus Genetics in Saskatoon.

“We’re at the point where we have enough information to be able to predict how different races of the fungus will react to the different canola varieties that are on the market.”

One of the best ways to manage blackleg is through rotation, he said — “not just rotation of different crops, but rotation of different varieties as well.”

Up until now, producers have had to do that almost completely blindly, he said.

“There’s quite a large risk that, in selecting a new variety of canola, they might actually still be using the same resistance.”

But with a simple lab test of infected plants, producers can determine which strain of blackleg is present in their field and choose the right resistant variety. The canola council has also been encouraging seed companies to label their bags with the resistant genes they use in their varieties, which will help as well.

“Once a producer has the information on the races of the pathogen that are in the field and the different resistances that are available to him in canola varieties, he’s able to pick a suitable variety for his field,” said Larkan.

The test will be available for the 2018 growing season, he added.

“The technology has been transferred to a number of testing labs around the Prairies and is being launched as a commercial test for producers,” he said. “It will be a widely available commercial test for producers across the Prairies by spring.”

The post Canola producers get two new tools in the fight against blackleg appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“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.”

“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.”

The post New canola variety labels show different strains of blackleg resistance appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.