Clubroot inspections have been completed in both Mountain View County and Red Deer County, and officials say that the results are promising.Art Preachuk, agriculture fieldman for Red Deer County (RDC), said that his team has confirmed two cases of clubroot in the county this year.He added: “Landowners will be managing that situation and won't be growing canola on those fields for up to four years, according to our policy.”Clubroot, which is a soil-borne disease affecting cruciferous crops like canola, mustard, and some vegetables, was discovered in one field in RDC last year, noted Preachuk, whose team had been conducting inspections in recent months.He said RDC will be hosting an informational seminar near the end of November to inform producers as to what precautions they should be taking, not only to avoid clubroot, but other problems that producers of other crops may face.Anybody growing crops in both the Mountain View and Red Deer counties is welcome to come out to the seminar, he said, noting organizers are aiming to cover many of the problems facing canola producers.“We were going to have a session that covers diseases, bugs, fungi, and anything else that kind of attacks your canola crops, and we'll probably touch on a few cereal pests as well,” he said.The seminar date is still tentative, although he noted the session may take place on Nov. 26 in Innisfail.If people want to know more, they can call the county office closer to the end of the month to find out details, he said.Jane Fulton, agriculture fieldman for Mountain View County, said: “Symptoms of clubroot have not been found within (the county) during our 2012 season surveys.”Fulton also noted that her team is planning to partner up with local industries to prepare a similar seminar to what RDC is planning this month, discussing potential crop pests and diseases of concern within Mountain View County.The clubroot in RDC last year was found in the far-east end of the county and this year his team found it on the west side, which may mean that public awareness of the problem has contributed to containing the disease, said Preachuk.“True to form,” he said, “they were on entrances to the field, and that's typically where they show up, as they're brought in on some kind of vehicle or implement in the dirt, and that seems to be the case here as well.”Though the infestation found this year was minor, he said that if the landowners keep canola out of the fields for a few years and use resistant varieties, clubroot should be managed without too much difficulty.The easiest way to keep clubroot and other crop-related diseases under control is simply to use best management practices such as rotating crops and simply inspecting crops, he said.Though clubroot was a subject of concern, he noted: “We did get hit with a lot of different things this year, probably because of the weather conditions.”“Luckily, most patches noted were small and isolated, but the fact that they are there gives them the opportunity to increase to economic damaging levels,” he said.During their inspections, his team looked for other problems and discovered cases of schlerotinia, aster yellows, flea beetle species, blackleg, cutworms, root maggots, lygus bugs, bertha army worms and alternaria black spot.
