Protect your yield building leaves Not all plant parts are made equal and not all cereal crops build yield with the same leaves. Some leaves carry more value to your yield than others. This can play a huge role in how you manage and control for disease in your wheat or barley crop. When it
Read MoreIf you farm in Alberta, Fusarium graminearum is a yearly concern that can lead to fusarium head blight (FHB) in cereals. Between Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK) and deoxynivalenol (DON), FHB can lead to significant impacts to your crop’s yield, quality and grade. In some cases, it can render your crop unmarketable. Once flag leaf emerges,
Read MoreCereal leaf disease does not always align with flag leaf fungicide timing. If disease symptoms occur after flag leaf timing, is a later application still worth it? Should I delay the application to head timing (anthesis) to add Fusarium suppression as well or should I apply fungicide now? Would this delay cause yield loss? Research
Read MoreCorrectly identifying foliar diseases is important for managing them effectively and efficiently. It is important to take note of moisture conditions, as well as the physical symptoms of the plants, in order to correctly identify diseases. Management practices such as growing resistant varieties, lengthening rotations, using clean and healthy seed, scouting your fields, and being
Read MoreFig. 1 Stripe rust, also referred to as yellow rust, is a fungus that can reduce wheat kernel quality and yield and is characterized by raised yellow stripes of spores running along the veins of the leaves (Fig. 1). Stripe rust spores are around 0.02mm in diameter, making them even smaller than the width of
Read MoreIdentifying and Managing Stripe Rust Stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis), also known as yellow rust, is a fungus that can have significant impacts on wheat and barley yields. Fig. 1 It can be identified by elongated yellow-orange oval pustules (uredinia) containing spores (uredospores) that run parallel to the leaf veins in
Read MoreAreas in central Alberta have been receiving nights below 0°C and the question of crop survival is never far off when this occurs. In general, wheat and barley are relatively resilient to frost as compared to canola. Wheat and barley can survive temperatures down to -6°C especially when soil temperatures are above 10°C and help
Read MoreNo! Don’t roll your wheat or barley while it is in the process of emergence. Cereal plants utilize a special leaf called a coleoptile. The coleoptile emerges from the cereal seed and drives its way upward pushing through the soil until it has emerged. It is specially designed to do this and withstand the pressure
Read MoreWe are far enough into the season that impacts of wireworms are present and visible. I recently had a couple conversations about wireworm impacts on fields that have been seed treated to suppress wireworm. These wireworm seed treatments work through ingestion by the wireworm. This means that the wireworm must feed on the seedling before
Read MoreMoisture in the South region is rated fair and good thanks to some much-needed rain that fell over the past week. The Central and North Central regions had less rain, though are still rated mostly fair to good, with the least amount of moisture on the eastern side of Alberta. The Peace region received the least amount of
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