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Farmers are being encouraged to check for verticillium stripe in canola

Verticillium Stripe is a fungal disease that was first discovered in Canadian canola crops in 2014, the disease causes lodging and yield loss in canola.

Courtney Boyachek,  an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada says it's a soil-borne disease.

"Meaning that,  it overwinters in the soil and then it germinates in the soil in the Spring and then the plant uptakes it around flowering."

She says in order to identify the disease producers will want to cut the stem of the canola plant off right at the root.

"It'll just be that grayish Starburst in the cross-section, kind of around 60% seed color change. You'll be able to see a really definitive line up the middle of the plant - where half of the plant is going to start dying off and half of the plant is still going to be thriving. A couple of other things - the epidermis of the plant (the stem tissue)  is just going to start peeling away like wallpaper, underneath that once you peel that off, you'll be able to see little microsclerotia. It kind of looks like someone took a pepper shaker and shook pepper all over the stem."

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Developing disease resistance in new wheat varieties

Video: Developing disease resistance in new wheat varieties


Dr. Colin Hiebert, research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – Morden, is focused on developing new tools that wheat breeders can use to improve, diversify and strengthen disease resistance in new wheat varieties. This includes new genomic tools that address resistance to five diseases including: Fusarium head blight, leaf rust, stripe rust, stem rust and common bunt.

Learn more about how research conducted at AAFC-Morden will impact wheat variety development, production and profitability for the future. This research is part of the Canadian National Wheat Cluster and funding is provided through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Alberta Grains, Sask Wheat, Manitoba Crop Alliance, Western Grains Research Foundation and Canadian Field Crop Research Alliance.