Reading Time: 6 minutes Inspecting your canola fields for early signs of disease can save you plenty of headaches in the long run.
Scouting for disease in canola crops
Alberta agronomist shares his knowledge of four big crop diseases along with how to find and control them in your fields
Canola’s clubroot success story
Once there was worry of agronomic disaster; today, the disease has become manageable
Reading Time: 4 minutes At one time, scientists, agronomists and growers were extremely worried clubroot would spread across the Prairies and devastate Canada’s canola industry.
Big clubroot numbers urge new vigilance
If you had it last year you probably have it this year — but it’s not the end of the world
Reading Time: 5 minutes Higher clubroot numbers in 2024 make the case for increased vigilance by Alberta canola growers in the coming season.
Researchers study verticillium yield losses
Team behind blackleg and clubroot yield loss models tackles new canola disease
Reading Time: 3 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – Canola industry leaders have been worried about verticillium stripe and its impact on crop yields for several years. 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 […] Read more
Cut clubroot off at the pass by thinking ahead
Resistant varieties not enough to tackle this disease of canola
Reading Time: 4 minutes Resistant canola varieties have played a major role in the war on clubroot but they are not enough on their own, say agronomists. An effective fight against the soil-borne, canola-targeting disease requires several solutions and fall is the time to think about them. “Because clubroot is such a complex disease, it’s really important that we […] Read more
Investing in clubroot research
Reading Time: < 1 minute Clubroot research in Alberta is getting a big boost. Results Driven Agriculture Research, the Alberta Canola Producers Commission and the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission have awarded $1.25 million to Stephen Strelkov at the University of Alberta to lead an expert team in: As part of the five-year project, the team is expected to contribute to […] Read more
New clubroot strains discovered
Some resistant canola varieties are susceptible
Reading Time: < 1 minute University of Alberta researchers say new strains of clubroot have been discovered in fields across the Prairies, including several capable of infecting canola plants bred to resist the disease. They identified 25 unique clubroot pathotypes from samples collected from more than 250 fields in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in 2019 and 2020. Seven of the […] Read more
Clubroot ‘race profiling’ can help boost resistance in canola
Research team sets stage for next generation of resistance to pesky crop disease
Reading Time: 4 minutes Racial profiling is not a term most people would want to be associated with. But with clubroot it’s different; it means the ability to select a canola variety that not only resists clubroot in general, but specific “races” of the disease of canola and other brassica plants. When it happens, thank an AAFC research team […] Read more
Lime shows promise for controlling clubroot in canola
The lime works by neutralizing the highly acidic soil preferred by clubroot, reducing the likelihood of spore germination and plant infection
Reading Time: 2 minutes Treating soil with lime could help farmers curtail clubroot infections in canola, new University of Alberta research suggests. Spot-treating soil with the mineral reduced the overall occurrence and severity of the disease by 35 to 91 per cent, growth experiments showed. The finding, published in the Canadian Journal of Plant Pathology, could give farmers an […] Read more
Clubroot diagnosis no longer a death sentence
The disease continues its relentless spread across Alberta — but the risk has become more manageable
Reading Time: 5 minutes John Guelly felt as though he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness when he found clubroot in his canola fields nearly 10 years ago. But in the decade since then, the Westlock-area farmer has come to view the disease as more of a chronic condition — still risky, still potentially devastating, but ultimately manageable […] Read moreCyber-Savvy Farmer
