Wheat School: A new tool for assessing fusarium head blight risk

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Fusarium, fusarium, fusarium.

It’s certainly on many minds right now, with fungicide season underway and all too fresh memories of fusarium-infected grain from 2016

Since you can’t really scout for the disease, we have to use models, such as the brand new risk tool launched by the Alberta Wheat Commission and the Alberta Climate Information Service, to help determine when a fungicide application is needed.

In this Wheat School episode, we chat with Brian Kennedy, Alberta Wheat’s grower relations coordinator, about the new modeling tool and app, and how it can help growers as the disease becomes more prevalent on the western side of the prairies.

The mobile-friendly tool is designed to work off of the nearest weather station to your field, with hourly updates on fusarium risk based on a seven-day history of rain, temperature and humidity. There are also provincial maps to view the Disease Severity Index for all 370-plus ACIS weather stations.

“You go to the website on your phone, you go to the map, and you choose the closest weather station to your field, expand the map, zoom in and zoom out. There’s over 350 weather stations in the system. Push the green button where the map is, and you get a fusarium risk gauge for that area,” explains Kennedy.

Since it is brand new, Alberta Wheat is looking for feedback from growers on any information they may want added.

To learn more about this new fusarium head blight risk management tool, check out this Wheat School episode filmed at CanolaPalooza in Lacombe on June 27th, 2017:

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