Wet Fall Means Increased Risk Of White Mould

Feb 10, 2020

Altona and Portage hosted meetings for edible bean growers last week.

David Kaminski, field crop pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture & Resource Development, talked about the risk of white mould appearing this year in dry beans.

"Last year we had a wet fall. There are opportunities for sclerotinia to multiply in a field in those conditions even if it didn't cause disease that resulted in yield loss," he commented. "We had the conditions last fall which set up for leaving behind a lot of the resting bodies and if its wet in the spring then we can ultimately be at risk from white mould again."

Kaminski says the last three years have been relatively free of white mould in dry beans.

He notes management strategies are complex, adding rotation is not useful because white mould can affect multiple crop types. A key component is knowing where those resting bodies are located and then applying fungicide at the appropriate time.

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