I was on the road during late July of this past summer in Alberta. While I was there, a colleague told me about a problem one of his clients was having.
Todd had a mixed farm outside of Red Deer. One morning while scouting his crops, he drove past his canola field and noticed some patchy areas that looked to be prematurely ripening.
Todd said he had a bad feeling in his gut, as he hadn’t seen the problem in any of his other canola fields.
Read Also
Producers aren’t panicking over tariffs and trade threats
The Manitoba Canola Growers Association (MCGA) surveyed its members this spring to get a sense of how trade uncertainty was…
He phoned my colleague for some advice. This particular field was seeded to canola only two years previously, he said.
“I didn’t apply fungicide to any of my canola acres this year because I didn’t think it was necessary,” Todd said. “The conditions didn’t seem optimal for sclerotinia.”
My colleague had agreed with Todd, but suggested he go out for a visit. I decided to go with him to Todd’s farm.
Sure enough, there were large patches throughout Todd’s canola that seemed to be ripening prematurely. The worried producer opened his records up on the hood of the truck. They confirmed my colleague’s belief that he was an excellent bookkeeper. Todd pays great attention to the details, always soil tests and supplies adequate nutrients to his crops.
He had mentioned sclerotinia, but we quickly ruled that out since it usually shows itself in individual plants, as opposed to big yellow patches. We headed out into a patch and focused on a few individual plants.
Each one was dead right to the ground. We ruled out fusarium wilt because there was no sign of its give-away symptom, the yellow or reddish-brown streaking. It usually affects only individual branches or half of the stem. Our next thought was blackleg, but there were no small black spots or basal stem cankers on the plant. Alternaria? But there were no small black lesions on the canola pods.
With a sinking feeling, I slowly pulled a plant out to expose the roots. It was time to look below the soil surface to get to the source of the problem.
What do you suppose Todd is dealing with in his canola crop? Send your diagnosis to COUNTRY GUIDE, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1; e-mail [email protected];or fax 204-947-9136 c/o Krista Simonson.
Correct answers will be pooled and one winner will be drawn for a chance to win a COUNTRY GUIDE cap and a one-year subscription to the magazine. The correct answer, along with the reasoning which solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop Advisor’s Solution File.
