SHESAID, THREESAID
BY SARAH WEIGUM
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Kenton Ziegler
Beiseker, AB
With cereals, fusarium is top-of-mind and
I’m trying to select genetics that have some
resistance. I try as much as possible to
avoid back-to-back cereals. I’m asking seed
growers if they’ve tested their seed lots for
fusarium. I don’t generally use fungicide.
I’ve done a number of checks and I’m not
convinced of the value. No matter if it’s
a fungicide or an insecticide, I’m always
aware of the beneficials and I don’t want
to take them out. I’m trying to increase
sustainability on my farm.
On canola, I’ve seen first-hand that the
resistance to blackleg is breaking down.
I’m addressing this by growing multiple
varieties. I’m asking seed suppliers if they
know what races of blackleg their seed is
resistant to. If a variety has resistance to
multiple strains of blackleg, that’s better
than a single strain. I grew three varieties
last year and I’m going to grow three vari-
eties again this year. I’m doing a lot of field
scouting to see what I have out there.
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3
Pests—be they diseases, weeds or insects—can rob profit from farms during the
growing season. Three Hills-area farmer and writer Sarah Weigum talked to three
farmers in the off-season about the challenges they had last year and how they are
planning to mitigate pest damage in 2015.
Terry James
Vegreville, AB
I worry about resistant weeds. We have
Group 2-resistant cleavers and, despite
years of spraying, we still have wild oats.
Now, we’re using the Group 4 herbicides
on cleavers. Anything with fluroxypyr is
expensive, but it does a really good job.
We have suspicions of resistant wild
oats. We use Group 1 and 2 products for
our wild oat control and we try to rotate
them, but we still have escapes with both
products. This past summer was particu-
larly di cult because we had some heavy
rain showers and that caused flooding and
second flushes. The crop wasn’t quite as
vigorous so that caused weed problems.
Another issue we have is volunteer
barley in our wheat, even though we try
to have a two- to three-year rotation. One
thing we’re looking at next year is growing
Group 2-resistant wheat. We’ve been
downgraded a couple times for barley in
our wheat. Because of zero-till, you do
have more volunteer cereal problems.
Dan Ropchan
Grimshaw, AB
Last year we had an almost pest-free year,
but according to the forecast for this com-
ing year we can expect grasshoppers again.
The pheromone traps in our area showed
a slightly higher egg count than average.
Two years ago, we sprayed a number of
fields for grasshoppers. The grasshoppers
started in early June and didn’t end until
freeze-up.
We are conscious about operator safety
when choosing chemicals. We try to walk
through the fields every second day in
June and July. We make a judgment on the
number of grasshoppers we see. One spray
usually eradicates them in a field. One field
can be grasshopper-free and the next can
be polluted with them, and they seem to
go more for wheat than canola.
We’re always concerned about blackleg
and clubroot. Clubroot seems to be on the
edge in our area, so we make sure we get
as much soil o the equipment as possible
before we go into the next field.
Spring
2015
grainswest.com
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