Tag: Holly Derksen

Determining rust risk, telling tan spot from septoria, and identifying a bacterial infection are all key to keeping the cereal crop’s solar panels (leaves!) clean and in top form. For this episode of The Agronomists, host Lyndsey Smith is joined by plant pathologists Holly Derksen with UPL, and Dr. Kelly Turkington with Agriculture and Agri-Food… Read More

Each fall the Western Forum on Pest Management meets to review the previous growing season. Scientists, researchers, and agronomists get together to compare notes on what happened during the previous growing season. This helps everyone get a better understanding of the issues so that they can help each other help farmers. Dale Leftwich, field editor… Read More

Now is the time to check canola fields for symptoms of clubroot, as a new streak of cases have been found in Manitoba over the last few weeks. The clubroot map for the province will likely be changing this fall, as the soil-borne disease has been found in a new municipality, says Holly Derksen, field… Read More

Do wheat varieties perform in line with the ratings provided during the registration process? When it comes to fusarium head blight tolerance, the short answer is yes, but the long answer is it depends on the year. Holly Derksen, plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, explains that the province has been tracking resistance performance of wheat… Read More

Stripe rust was reported in early spring in Alberta, likely having over-wintered in the southern part of the province, and now there are reports in Manitoba of the fungus arriving on winds from the U.S. In this Wheat School episode, Holly Derksen, plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, describes how stripe rust inoculum moves north from the… Read More

Poor emergence or damping off of young soybean plants can be a sign of a seedling disease or root rot problem, especially following cool, wet weather as experienced in much of the soybean growing part of Western Canada this spring. As Holly Derksen, plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, explains in this Soybean School West episode, there are… Read More

Another gene that has provided resistance to crown rust in oat varieties grown in Western Canada is losing its effectiveness. The Pc91 gene was a source of resistance to crown rust in some of common varieties in recent years, including Souris, Stainless, HiFi, AAC Justice and CDC Morrison, but changes in the crown rust pathogen population in… Read More

It’s too early to say how big a problem verticillium wilt could become for the Canadian canola industry, but it should be on the radar for growers, says the crop pathologist taking the lead on the new disease issue within Manitoba Agriculture. As reported by Real Ag last week, the first known case of Verticillium… Read More

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Thursday, January 8th with additional information from the CFIA about the location of the case of verticillium wilt in canola. The first North American case of a disease that has caused serious economic losses in Europe’s rapeseed crop has been found in a canola trial plot in Manitoba…. Read More

With clubroot disease showing up in fields east of Alberta over the last few years, there’s work underway in Manitoba to survey the entire canola-growing region of the province for the presence of clubroot spores. So far, spores or symptoms have been found in 13 fields in 10 rural municipalities in Manitoba. Spore concentrations in… Read More