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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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.