GRAIN
SCIENCE
NEWS
What’sAlbertadoingabout
Fusariumheadblight?
STEVE LAROCQUE HAS A PROBLEM.
“Our frustration at the moment is that we
haven’t noted any telltale symptoms in
our grain, but DNA tests sometimes come
back positive for Fusarium,” he said.
He wanted to do the right thing, so he
sent in another sample to get a quanti-
tative result, because the DNA test only
told him that
Fusarium graminearum
was
present, not to what degree. “We [took]
another sample from the same bin, and it
[came] back negative,” he said.
WHAT’S A FARMER TO DO?
It’s a serious question for all grain pro-
ducers as they watch the slow, westward
march of Fusarium head blight (FHB), the
disease caused by the
Fusarium gramin-
earum
pathogen, and want to keep it off
their farms.
For Larocque, answering that question
goes beyond his own Three Hills–area
operation. As owner of Beyond Agronomy,
an independent crop consultancy, he has
roughly 70,000 acres under his care. “I
look at the DNA tests as a warning sign,”
he said. “It’s kind of like waiting for the
hammer to fall—when conditions are
right, FHB is going to happen.”
Mike Harding agrees. A research
scientist at Alberta Agriculture and
Forestry’s Crop Diversification Centre in
Brooks, Harding is heading up a two-year
Fusarium graminearum
survey of Alberta,
beginning this year. “
Fusarium gramine-
arum
is a unique problem,” he said. “It’s
very difficult to manage, and it can affect
the bottom line in three ways: yield loss,
downgrading and market acceptance.”
Fall
2015
Grains
West
48
ANEWSTUDY BY ALBERTAAGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY’S CROP DIVERSIFICATION
CENTREWILL HELP FARMERS RESPOND TOTHE THREAT
FATAL FUNGUS:
Fusarium-damaged
grain kernels often look shrivelled and
bleached.
Photo: Canadian Grain Commission
