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Fall
2017
Grains
West
18
THE
FARMGATE
FUNGUSFIGHTER
FUSARIUMHEADBLIGHT TOOLWELL
RECEIVEDBY FARMERSANDAGCOMPANIES
BY IAN DOIG
THE FUSARIUM HEAD BLIGHT RISK
Tool was launched at the start of the 2017
growing season. Developed by the Alberta
Wheat Commission in collaboration with
the Alberta Climate Information Service,
the online resource features a local risk
indicator, a provincial risk map and a tab
detailing best management practices.
The map indicates the favourability of
weather conditions for the development
of Fusarium head blight (FHB) at wheat’s
most susceptible flowering stage, with a
range of low, moderate and high. With
climate data and management options
provided by the online tool, as well as
farmers’ own field assessments, local
infection history and crop-yield estimates,
farmers can make more informed deci-
sions about whether or not to spray, which
fungicides to use and when.
In Saskatchewan and Manitoba,
provinces where FHB has been prevalent
longer, risk maps have been in use for
some time.
AWC grower relations and extension
co-ordinator Brian Kennedy said response
to the risk tool from farmers, seed growers
and crop-protection companies has been
very positive. “Everybody really likes the
format,” he said. “We’re excited to add
features for 2018, but we want to keep
it simple and usable, as it is now.” Such
features will likely include a risk map for
barley once the model for predicting blight
in this grain is better developed.
Though he expected usage of the
tool will prove relatively low due to the
dryness of the 2017 growing season,
Kennedy predicted usage will increase
in coming years with wetter conditions.
A post-harvest examination of risk tool
analytics compiled over the season is
being carried out.
“You might have a new tool, but are
people aware of it?” said Daniel Itenfisu, a
drought modeller with the AgMet Unit of
Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. “It will
help us to get that feedback.”
Kelly Turkington, a research scientist
and plant pathologist at Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada’s Lacombe Research
and Development Centre, has been ex-
tensively involved in FHB research on the
Prairies. He suggested that carrying out
ground truthing with the system will be
important over the next two to four years,
and hopes that funding for this may be
delivered federally through the Canadian
Agricultural Partnership, the successor
to
Growing Forward 2
. This could involve
examining the Canadian Grain Commis-
sion’s FHB-damaged kernel results as well
as targeted surveying of areas of predicted
low, moderate and high risk.
Any tweaks to the tool may be based
on what’s going on in Saskatchewan and
Manitoba, Turkington predicted. “I think
there is a desire that perhaps the three
provinces will co-ordinate activities.”
Does the risk of disease warrant either
the effort or expense of a fungicide appli-
cation? This is the big question the tool
helps to answer, said Dr. Michael Hard-
ing, research scientist, plant pathology,
pest surveillance section, Alberta Agricul-
ture and Forestry. “It provides information
that’s very close to up-to-the-minute about
what has happened and what that might
do with respect to risk of FHB developing
in an area.
“A number of farm units employ agron-
omists to help with this decision-making,”
he noted. “It would be used by those folks
to make recommendations to farmers.
“I think it will be quite valuable and the
uptake will increase over successive years
as we move past this beta test year and do
additional work to validate that the model
works well in Alberta, as it does in other
jurisdictions. As the word gets out and
more and more people get familiar with it,
I think it’ll be really useful.”
Though in much of the province dry
conditions have minimized the occur-
rence of this moisture-loving fungus,
Harding said the risk map will still have
proven useful in areas where drought con-
ditions did not occur. “Even though 2017
has been a really dry year, it’s nice to have
that tool available so we can start to add
that info into our decision-making.”
AWC grower relations and extension co-ordinator Brian Kennedy said response to the FHB risk tool
developed by AWC and Alberta Climate Information Service has been very positive.