“Verticillium is a new disease to Canada,” said Cornelsen. “It was first identified on a farm south of Winnipeg in 2014, but it has now been identified in many other production regions.”

As a result, very little is known about the disease.

Canola yields were down across the Prairies last year. Cornelsen said much of the yield loss has been attributed to heat stress and drought loss in Saskatchewan and to blackleg in Alberta. But poor yields coincided with a severe outbreak of verticillium in Manitoba, and many farmers and agronomists are thinking the soil-borne disease might be the issue. But Cornelsen said it’s hard to pin down exactly how verticillium affects yield.

“There’s nothing to really validate that those were the primary losses, just anecdotes and field evidence,” she said. “When we look to yield losses for verticillium, we don’t have a good answer.”

The problem is, because it’s so new, very little research has been done in Canada.

“It’s probably only been the last five years that this disease has been taken seriously, where there’s been investment into research and a more focused effort,” she said.

Since research projects can take up to five years, and since 2020 was basically a write-off because of COVID, in many cases we’re only seeing the very earliest results from that research now.

While the disease is new to Canada, the brassica-loving species verticillium longisporum that was discovered here in 2014 was first discovered in Germany on horseradish in 1960. As a result, it would make sense that plant pathologists could lean on European research to deal with the disease. Unfortunately, the Europeans have been no help.

“They actually kind of try to spin it as a positive,” said Cornelsen. “It’s a kind of a natural, dry-down product for them, thought to help with harvestability.”

Because it’s a soil-borne disease, fungicides won’t be effective. For the same reason, crop rotation, the go-to for any integrated pest management approach, isn’t all that effective because canola is everywhere and the disease is wind-borne.

So, a lot of the hope and expectation is for some kind of silver bullet from plant breeders to develop resistant hybrids.

But Cornelsen cautions that rushing something to market isn’t always the best idea. She pointed to clubroot. It was discovered in 2003 and within six or seven years, new resistant hybrids came on the market. But within four years, those hybrids were overcome.

“We want to provide a product that’s going to have some longevity and help solve our answers to verticillium,” she said. “It’s tough to provide any sort of management practices, but we are working on it.

Keep an eye out for a future print edition for more on verticillium longisporum. And visit our launch page for more coverage of Manitoba Ag Days 2025.

—Updated Jan. 29. Corrects spelling of Justine Cornelsen’s name.

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“Verticillium stripe is a soil-borne pathogen and it overwinters in the soil,” said Courtney Boyachek, agronomy specialist and verticillium stripe lead with the council. “Last year was a bad year for infection, and the inoculum is still there. It’s something that we’re keeping in mind for this year, even though conditions are better.”

Verticillium stripe was first detected in Manitoba in 2014, the first North American case of the disease in an oilseed crop. Since then, it has been rising to yield-damaging levels in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan and is now found in all growing regions across the Prairies.

“Over the last couple of years, infection levels have been high,” Boyachek said. “But last year was kind of the perfect storm for verticillium. So, it was pretty widespread across Manitoba and started to creep into Saskatchewan.”

Last year, cases were especially bad in the southwestern corner of Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan. Since the fungus is soil-borne, farmers in those areas started the year with potential for a severe outbreak.

Fortunately, 2023 weather may have mitigated the issue. Verticillium stripe flourishes in hot, wet conditions and infects plants during flowering.

“We did have adequate moisture in the spring, but we didn’t see any excess moisture,” Boyachek noted. “It did get hot, but it got hot before flowering. We saw a cooler flowering period…”

She says it’s too soon to know infection rates this year.

“We start to see it at 60 per cent seed colour change, so we’re still a little bit early to be noticing any symptoms.”

Harvest is the ideal time to scout for verticillium stripe because symptoms are most obvious.

The canola council’s messaging has ramped up in recent weeks so farmers will think about verticillium stripe as they prepare to take crop off the field. It has put out scouting tips and identification and symptom guides to help farmers distinguish it from blackleg and sclerotinia. Misdiagnosis is a common problem between the three diseases, and the same field can be infected by more than one of the three at a time.

Manitoba Canola Growers members who think they may have discovered verticillium stripe can get free testing through the Pest Surveillance Initiative, which uses DNA-based tools to single out the race or pathotype of detected diseases.

No answers

If testing does confirm the disease, there are no easy solutions. No fungicide or soil treatment has proven effective on verticillium stripe and no resistant variants have yet been developed.

“Once verticillium is there, there’s really nothing that you can do,” said Boyachek.

Accurate identification is all about managing infections in the future and avoiding spread.

That could require steps to keep the soil, and therefore the pathogen, in place. The canola council website recommends two- or three-year breaks between canola crops as good disease management in general, but warns that verticillium microsclerotia can remain viable for many years.

There is no good data that correlates infection rates with yield loss and profitability.

“We’re still not 100 per cent sure of the yield impacts of verticillium. We just don’t know those numbers quite yet,” said Boyachek.

Verticillium stripe symptoms

The Canola Council of Canada flags several verticillium signs:

Stem striping

When the crop is full height, but still green, infected canola plants will often have a two-toned stem — half healthy and green and half discoloured and drying down. This is where the disease gets its name.

Leaves can show similar symptoms: healthy on one side, diseased on the other.

This is one way to differentiate verticillium stripe, since farmers will not see stem or leaf striping with blackleg or sclerotinia stem rot. Sclerotinia will cause stem discolouration but it will not stripe half the stem.

Stem cross-section discolouration

Verticillium stripe infects roots and enters the plant’s vascular system. Verticillium hyphae (branching filaments that make up the mycelium of a fungus) and conidia (asexual spores) fill up the vascular system, giving the stem cross-section a greyish colour.

This is easily confused with blackleg. There are two main tips to distinguish the pathogens. With blackleg, stem tissue infections tend to be darker and cause distinct wedge shapes of black. Verticillium is lighter grey and more general throughout the cross-section.

Blackleg stem discolouration is confined to the crown area at the base of the stem. Verticillium darkening can extend well up the stem.

Black specks

As the verticillium infection advances, microsclerotia will start to form on the underside of the peeling stem skin. These can be found all the way up the stem.

Verticillium specks may seem similar to blackleg pycnidia, but they’re much smaller – more like powdery pepper. In some cases, blackleg pycnidia will have a purple-pinkish ooze of pycnidiospores around them. Blackleg pycnidia are also confined to a lesion no more than a few centimetres in size. If you see pink and specks confined to a lesion, it’s blackleg.

Stem peeling and weakening

Peeling stem skin is a symptom of verticillium stripe. Under that peeled outer layer will be the microsclerotia, often taking the shape of faint black vertical striping.

Severely diseased stems may break off and can be confused with lodging.

Sclerotinia stem rot will also cause weakened, brittle stems, but sclerotinia will not have the stripy, speckly microsclerotia. Sclerotinia stem rot will cause the entire stem tissue to shred, not just the outer layer.

Inside the stem, sclerotinia will form sclerotia bodies – the canola-seed-sized resting bodies. Verticillium stripe does not produce sclerotia bodies.

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While the agency itself is recommending against regulation, CFIA on Wednesday posted a draft of a risk management document on verticillium wilt, seeking feedback from the public until May 15, to “help decide whether it is feasible to regulate this fungus.”

Up until it was spotted in a single Manitoba canola crop in 2014, V. longisporum — the fungus that causes verticillium wilt — had never been reported in any crops anywhere in Canada, nor on canola crops anywhere in North America.

However, a nationwide survey of “more than 1,000” canola-stubble fields in all canola production areas in Canada, run from August through November 2015, has confirmed V. longisporum is “widely distributed” in most canola production areas in Canada.

Specifically, CFIA said, tests from the surveyed fields last year confirmed the fungus to be present in canola-growing areas not only in Manitoba, but in Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

In all, 263 surveyed canola fields tested positive for the presence of V. longisporum DNA, CFIA said. Positive samples from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario were found to belong to the same genotype; the genotype for samples from canola fields in B.C. and Quebec “was not determined.”

In the three other provinces surveyed — New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island — the fungus was not detected, CFIA said.

“Based on its widespread distribution, the CFIA has determined that V. longisporum does not meet the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) definition of a quarantine pest,” the agency said Wednesday.

Thus, CFIA said it won’t recommend adding V. longisporum to the List of Pests Regulated by Canada — a list which includes fungal diseases such as potato wart and Dutch elm disease, among other insects, molluscs, weeds and viral and fungal pests.

CFIA noted it had launched its pest risk assessment and national field survey for V. longisporum back when “it was unknown whether the fungus was established beyond the single confirmed site in Manitoba.”

Before the field survey had been completed, the pest risk assessment had found the fungus “could potentially meet the definition of a quarantine pest in Canada,” as it had the potential to cause economic harm to the canola industry, “both in terms of yield losses, as well as potential trade disruptions.”

V. longisporum, CFIA noted, was “previously known to occur” in association with cauliflower and horseradish crops in the U.S., and has been present in northern Europe for “several decades,” causing leaf chlorosis and premature ripening in affected winter oilseed rape crops.

The disease “has the potential to impact canola yields, with yield reductions highly correlated with disease severity.”

A soil-borne fungus, V. longisporum is “mainly spread by movement of infested soil and crop debris” and has also been reported to move with contaminated seed harvested from “heavily infested” fields.

The pathogen, CFIA said, survives through microsclerotia, a “resting” structure that can remain viable for periods of up to 10 years or more in soil or infested debris.

To “manage and reduce further spread” of V. longisporum in Canadian fields, CFIA said, “on-farm biosecurity measures appear to be the best approach.”

Biosecurity practices, according to the Canola Council of Canada, include “equipment and tool sanitation, controlling off-farm traffic, monitoring seed/feed/fertilizer sources, and developing an on-farm biosecurity plan.”

In the meantime, CFIA said, “naturally infested” canola crops will give researchers a “window of opportunity” to study the disease’s “epidemiology and management, risk mitigation, development and evaluation of resistant canola varieties and crop yield.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Fumigants have been potato growers’ only option against the crop disease until now, Eric Phillips, Syngenta Canada’s fungicides and insecticides product lead, said in a release Thursday.

Verticillium wilt, the company said, is “one of the main contributors” to potato early dying complex, which is “widespread across many growing areas, but difficult to identify and effectively manage.”

The label expansion, Phillips said, means Aprovia “can be included as part of a grower’s soil disease management plan to help protect potato quality and yield.”

In Aprovia the active ingredient — benzovindiflupyr, a Group 7 (SDHI) fungicide which Syngenta markets under the name Solatenol — is packaged as an emulsifiable concentrate at 100 grams per litre of product.

Its label covers it for “broad-spectrum” control or suppression of listed diseases — including several rusts, leaf spots and powdery mildews — in crops such as potatoes, fruiting vegetables, grapes, pome fruit (apples, pears), blueberries and cucurbits such as cucumbers and squash.

In potatoes, the expanded label clears Aprovia for in-furrow suppression of verticillium wilt at 750 millilitres of product per hectare (300 ml/acre). At 100-centimetre row spacing, for example, that translates to 7.5 ml of product per 100-metre row.

When applied in-furrow at planting, Syngenta said, Aprovia “works from within the plant to help reduce the foliar symptoms of verticillium wilt that appear later in the season.”

Aprovia’s label also covers suppression of silver scurf and Rhizoctonia solani, the cause of stem and stolon canker and black scurf, at rates of 500 to 750 ml per hectare (200-300 ml/acre) of potatoes.

Maximum residue limits (MRLs) for Aprovia have so far been established for markets in Canada and the U.S., the company said. — AGCanada.com Network

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The federal and Manitoba governments on Thursday announced $969,000 for equipment, including a polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) machine, and $250,000 for research at the Manitoba Canola Growers Association’s new Pest Surveillance Initiative (PSI) lab in Winnipeg.

The research funding, coming from the Growing Actions program under the Growing Forward 2 ag policy funding framework, is to be used to take samples from across the province to determine the presence of clubroot.

The money will also support a new web-based biosecurity questionnaire and risk assessment for producers, the governments said in a release.

The lab’s new qPCR machine can be used to identify low levels of clubroot in submitted soil samples. Other new equipment for the lab will include gene sequence and analysis equipment to track how clubroot strains may change over time, the governments said.

PCR testing was used to find Manitoba’s first fields with non-symptomatic levels of clubroot in 2011, and clubroot in a Manitoba field at levels capable of causing symptoms in canola plants starting in 2013. Since then, about two per cent of Manitoba’s fields have been sampled to check for the presence of clubroot.

The MCGA, which manages the PSI lab with support from the Manitoba government, has also put up another $130,000 for the lab and its research.

“Labs like the PSI are needed to keep up with emerging threats to Manitoba crops like clubroot and the recently announced detection of verticillium wilt,” MCGA president Ed Rempel said in the governments’ release.

Clubroot baseline

The clubroot grid sampling project, he said, will provide a baseline of clubroot levels in Manitoba by this fall. “Growers need this information to make management decisions and protect their incomes. Since there are many diseases that threaten canola and other crops, we expect the PSI lab will be busy for years to come.”

Other non-clubroot projects of interest to Manitoba farmers are expected to begin later in 2015, the governments said, noting a lab director, field staff and an internship program are already in place for PSI.

Clubroot, which didn’t arrive in Prairie canola until appearing near Edmonton in 2003, can cause premature crop ripening and economic losses due to reduced yield in host crops including canola. The disease restricts the flow of water and nutrients, causing wilting, stunting and yellowed plants.

Verticillium wilt was confirmed earlier this month to have made its first appearance in canola in North America last summer in a Manitoba canola field.

The fungal disease, well known to northern Europe’s canola and vegetable growers, has no seed treatments or foliar fungicides yet registered against it, and no resistant canola varieties available. — AGCanada.com Network

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Without giving the farm’s specific or general location, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Friday it’s placed a quarantine order on seed from the farm at which samples were taken last fall to confirm Verticillium wilt in canola caused by Verticillium longisporum. [Related story]

A prohibition of movement order is also in place on equipment used to harvest the seed, CFIA said, adding it’s working with the farm’s owner to discuss “treatment options” for said equipment, to make sure it’s cleaned of soil and plant debris.

The agency said Friday it’s still “too early” to know the source of the fungus, but CFIA is running traceouts to learn how V. longisporum arrived at that spot.

CFIA said it also plans related surveys to rule out any further spread and to learn if this was an “isolated detection” that may have been brought into the location on imported seed.

V. longisporum is mainly spread via movement of infested soil or diseased plant parts, CFIA said, noting “some scientific evidence” that seed from heavily-infected crops may bring it to new areas.

In this case, the agency said, the single V. longisporum finding is “limited to one location which is not being used for commercial production.” The Reuters agency and other media have described the site as a research farm.

“Given we are now in the post-harvest season and all crop material has been removed, and that CFIA biosecurity restrictions have been applied at the farm, there is no immediate risk of any further agricultural-related spread of V. longisporum,” CFIA said Friday.

V. longisporum is known to cause advanced ageing, early death and decreased yield in infected plants, mainly affecting canola plants but also other crucifers such as cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, turnips and radish.

The type of Verticillium wilt already known to infect Manitoba sunflower and potato crops is caused by a different Verticillium species.

While not previously reported in Canada, V. longisporum is “prevalent” in Europe, Russia and Japan, and has been seen in crops other than canola in parts of the U.S. including California and Illinois, CFIA said.

“Disappointing”

Canada doesn’t yet consider V. longisporum a quarantine pest, the agency said, but once a pest risk assessment and surveillance work are done, it’ll decide whether to “take action” under the Plant Protection Act to eradicate the pest — or to slow and prevent it from spreading elsewhere.

The Canola Council of Canada said it’s now working with CFIA and Manitoba’s ag department to “understand the implications of this pathogen.”

For its part, the council said Friday it will post information on the wilt cycle and identification to its website — and make “management practices” available to growers in time for seeding this spring.

The “latest research” on Verticillium wilt will also be a topic at the International Rapeseed Congress coming up in Saskatoon in July, the council said.

“Although it’s disappointing that a new disease has been identified, it shows that the system is working and the industry is responding in a proactive and collaborative manner,” council president Patti Miller said in a separate release Friday. — AGCanada.com Network

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With no seed treatments or foliar fungicides yet registered against it — and with no resistant canola varieties available — the disease, if here to stay, may put added pressure on growers to seed canola more sparingly in rotations.

Manitoba’s provincial agriculture department recently reported the finding on its website but gave no specifics on the field’s location in the province.

Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development said its Crop Diagnostic Centre in Winnipeg “visually identified” the disease on a canola sample.

A culture was then sent to the National Fungal Identification Service. The Ottawa lab, using molecular identification, confirmed the pathogen as Verticillium longisporum, the province said.

The province said it’s now working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to implement “biosecurity risk mitigation measures” at the site where this pest was detected.

CFIA, the province said, plans to run “further surveying” this spring to gauge the spread of the wilt pathogen.

The province also pledged to make more information available leading up to this spring for the industry, “building on additional information provided through surveying efforts.”

Since the ground is now frozen and precautions, such as stubble management and restrictions on movement of farm equipment, are being taken, the risk of V. longisporum spreading right now is “extremely low,” the province said.

Rotation “not enough”

The province described V. longisporum as the most common disease found in canola in Sweden — and common throughout much of northern Europe. A 2006 thesis from Anna Johansson of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences describes V. longisporum as “the major disease responsible for yield losses in oilseed crops in Sweden today.”

A 2008 German paper describes yield losses in affected oilseed rape plants ranging from 20 to more than 80 per cent per plant, in fields with disease severity levels ranking above 5 on a 0-9 scale.

While V. longisporum has never been reported in Canada, nor on canola crops anywhere in North America, it’s previously been found in vegetable crops in the U.S., including cauliflower in California and horseradish in Illinois.

Symptoms of V. longisporum in canola include chlorosis (yellowing) of lateral branches or leaves (often one-sided), early senescence (aging) and stunting, the province said.

Symptoms in canola most often appear near the season’s end, as the plants begin to ripen; while an affected stem is still green, a vertical yellow or brown band up one side of the stem may be seen.

At later stages, the province said, the epidermal layer of an affected stem may peel back to show microsclerotia — black pepper-like spots, visible to the naked eye.

Other brassica crops such as mustard, cabbage, cauliflower, rutabaga and broccoli can also be affected by the same species. A different species causes the type of Verticillium wilt already common in sunflower and potato crops in Manitoba, the province said.

V. longisporum can survive in the soil for 10 to 15 years, with the number of viable microsclerotia in the soil declining over time, the province said. Biosecurity practices such as those recommended for clubroot can help also prevent the wilt’s spread.

In Europe, where Verticillium wilt has been a “long-term” issue, the recommended management practice is three years between canola crops in a rotation, allowing the populations to decline naturally in the soil, the province said.

However, the province warned, “due to the long-lived microsclerotia, rotation alone is not enough to manage this problem effectively.” Other biosecurity practices include equipment and tool sanitation, control of off-farm traffic and monitoring seed, feed and fertilizer sources. — AGCanada.com Network

UPDATED, Jan. 9, 2015: Point of clarification: The previous version of this story didn’t specify V. longisporum has been seen before in the U.S., in crops other than canola.

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“Disease patterns matched the weather,” provincial pathology researcher Mike Harding said at last month’s 2014 Irrigation Update conference. “Different conditions led to serious disease issues in one area and virtually none just 20 miles away.”

For example, cereal leaf spot diseases were widespread especially in spring wheats, less common in winter wheat, but most cases were not severe. In central Alberta, foliar diseases occurred in most barley and wheat crops, and was serious in some fields. The key to control is checking early, said Harding.

“If you see any of the leaf spot symptoms early, before flag leaf or before the canopy is completely closed, you want to protect that flag leaf with a fungicide,” he said.

Ergot was also quite common last year, but not as bad as 2012, said Harding. It was another problem that happened in limited situations. The best protection is the old standby, rotation. But producers who spot the problem can leave grain standing so the wind shakes the ergot bodies out of the heads before combining. They can then mow grass around fields as it heads or combine and bin grain from headlands and other areas close to wild grasses separately from the rest of the field. If all else fails, colour sorting the infested grain can up the grade.

Root rot in pulses, especially peas, came up in both Harding’s presentation and one from Ron Howard, another plant pathology researcher with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development. The Lethbridge Research Centre surveyed 145 fields and found root rots in 98 per cent of them. Many affected plants had no above-ground symptoms, but others showed yellowing. Affected roots are discoloured, with no nodules and secondary roots are pruned off.

“Some crops were hammered,” said Harding. “Symptoms were the worst in east-central Alberta and lowest in the south. Around the perimeters of waterlogged spots were the worst areas.”

Fusarium head blight is established in the irrigation area, but there was a big increase in grain samples downgraded by Canadian Grain Commission for fusarium-damaged kernels in central Alberta and along the Highway 16 corridor. Howard and Harding worked with seed-testing labs to establish how much of this was actually caused by Fusarium graminearum and found increased levels of the fungus on grain and seed from central Alberta.

“Fusarium head blight isn’t a new disease,” said Howard. “It affects most cereals, cutting yield and quality, and causes stalk and ear rot in corn. We’ve had it all over Alberta. But it’s becoming more common — partly because it thrives in warm, moist conditions, but (also because) the new 15A-DON strain is more aggressive and more toxic.”

Stripe rust was less of a problem than might have been expected, especially after 2012 when it spread all the way to Manitoba, possibly from spores that overwintered in winter wheat rather than blowing directly from the Pacific Northwest. Stripe rust thrives with cool nights and 2013 had relatively few of those.

• From the Grainews website: Sclerotinia in Manitoba

Clubroot is spreading fast. A province-wide survey identified 418 new infections for a cumulative total of more than 1,500 infected fields found since 2004. But the number is likely significantly higher, Howard and Harding said. In a wet spring such as 2013, the germinating spores can swim in the soil moisture to infect new plants, including weeds. It’s still spreading south, north and east from the Edmonton area. The good news is that there are no reports that clubroot resistance in canola is breaking down.

Blackleg in canola is present in most fields, but often goes unrecognized or misdiagnosed, said Harding.

“Many people aren’t looking for it,” he said. “Get a good set of clippers and check. You could be losing yield.”

Howard warned of diseases that could spread or be accidentally imported into Alberta. The province is developing a real-time database to alert producers to both new diseases and established ones that are on the upswing.

Dwarf bunt has been found in the south Okanagan where it’s quarantined. The bunt has the characteristic oily fish smell, but the spores are highly allergenic and flammable — so much so that smut dust is explosive.

Verticillium wilt is a disease of canola and other broadleaf crops that Howard described as “scary.” The Verticillium fungus that attacks canola is a very aggressive species that’s endemic in Europe.

“Other species of this fungus do well in our environment and we have no resistant canola varieties,” he said.

Pulse crops’ honeymoon could be over. They are susceptible to fungal foliage blights that have become quite prevalent in Saskatchewan. Howard advised to watch for them as well as root rots.

A new insect to Alberta, the potato psyllid, could have a dramatic impact on the potato industry. The psyllid carries ‘zebra chip’ bacteria, which causes dark stripes in the flesh of tubers rendering them unsalable. Zebra chip has spread from Mexico to the southern U.S. and is slowly moving northward. Dan Johnston of the University of Lethbridge is leading a Canada-wide survey for zebra chip and potato psyllids, and is working with plant pathologists and entomologists on a project to exclude the disease and protect southern Alberta’s potato industry.

“The province was relatively free of the disease, but we began to have sporadic outbreaks of the disease between 2010 and 2013,” said Howard. “We found the problem was mainly due to a new tomato strain of the disease that came into Alberta on infected transplants for home gardens. We had an aggressive awareness campaign to get home gardeners and market gardens to dispose of diseased plants in ways that prevent spores from drifting to commercial potato crops.”

Howard urged all producers and agronomists to be vigilant for new diseases, and to be careful of imported plant parts, cuttings and seed. Wildlife, including birds and insects can also transport new disease organisms, as well as farm equipment and vehicles and also tourists who may have travelled to infected areas.

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