Clubroot inspections in Red Deer County fields should be winding up this week or next, once the canola plants have stopped flowering, said Cody McIntosh, the county's assistant agricultural manager.ìThat's a pest we're worried about. And the wet conditions here will probably promote clubroot. That could be an issue coming up,î said McIntosh.ìOnce the flowers start dropping off, we can begin looking for symptoms, like overripe fields, and early maturing.îMcIntosh explained the soil-born pathogen causes the roots of canola plants to swell and become clubbed, which restricts the flow of nutrients going up to the plant, effectively killing them.ìIt's not getting nutrients, so it's not producing chlorophyll.îYellowed plants indicate areas affected with clubroot, as McIntosh said healthy canola fields are typically off-grey in colour when flowering is complete.ìSo far in Red Deer County, we don't have any clubroot, or confirmed sightings.îCounty agriculture services manager Art Preachuk said all the canola fields to be inspected have been mapped out and are ready for inspection.ìIt's just a matter of going to them and getting our procedures down. Our goal is to inspect every field of canola (in Red Deer County),î said Preachuk.This includes visually assessing the field for weak-looking plants and pulling them to inspect the roots, said Preachuk.ìIf we find it, we want to contain it. It's been all around us. We have to assume that eventually it's going to get here.îìIf we can find it sooner than later, maybe we can do something about it to keep it from spreading.îCurrently, Mountain View County agricultural staff is in the process of contacting landowners for their consent to examine their fields.ìThe fields are selected at random,î said Jane Fulton, agriculture services manager for MVC.Canola fields that appear to be showing symptoms of clubroot - wilting, stunting, yellowing and early maturity ñ would be given priority for inspection, said Fulton.ìThe field inspection focuses on field entrances, low areas, areas where there has been disturbance and any other high-risk areas for clubroot identified within the field.îShe said inspectors wear disposable boot covers over their footwear when inspecting fields for club root, and their vehicles never enter onto the field.Any suspected infections would be confirmed by lab analysis as soon as possible, said Fulton.ìThe best defence is crop rotation and good sanitation. If an infestation is confirmed, canola and any host crops should not be planted for three years.îìIf you keep planting back-to-back crops of the same variety, you stand a chance of building up diseases.îPreachuk said counties around Edmonton have banned the planting and growth of canola for several years because of a bad outbreak.ìTheir infestation was so bad that they had zero yield on the crop. But previously, they'd grown the same crop year after year.îProducers who choose to do this put not only their own crops in danger, but neighbouring crops as well, said Preachuk.An Alberta Agriculture (Cumulative Club Root Infestations) report released in January of this year (actual survey dates unknown) reported a handful of cases in both Ponoka and Lacombe areas.Clubroot has yet to be detected in either Red Deer or Mountain View counties.
