MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - The county’s agriculture services board has received an update on the municipality’s clubroot response and the clubroot management policy and procedure.
The review came during the board’s recent regularly scheduled meeting, held in person and on Zoom, and included a presentation by assistant agricultural fieldman Chris Chrenek.
There have been 10 fields within Mountain View County confirmed to have clubroot infestation since 2015, including two in the Eagle Hill area in 2021, members heard.
The agriculture services board is made up of county councillors and public members, advising the county and province on agriculture issues and concerns.
Under county procedure, the board reviews the municipality’s clubroot policy and procedure annually to ensure it is kept current and up to date. The county’s procedure states that when an infection is found, the current crop may be harvested, but all residues from the crop must not be retained for further use or moved off the property.
Clubroot is a soil-borne disease that causes swellings or galls to form on the roots of canola and other plants in the Brassicaceae family, potentially causing death of the plant.
“We are still finding a couple fields a year through our testings,” said Chrenek. “We are seeing the clubroot progress across the county and that is not unexpected.”
Fields are selected at random throughout the county for annual testing, he said.
“We are getting a good representation,” he said. “And we do look for high risk areas too, whether it is near other clubroot or if we see high activity that could potentially cause it.”
The county does conduct follow-up inspections of fields where clubroot is found, he said.
Administration is not recommending any amendments to the county’s clubroot policy or procedure, members heard.
“We are not suggesting any changes,” he said. “We are having good success when we are talking with producers that we are finding clubroot on and they seem to be OK with our processes that we do and we are getting good uptake.
“Producers are not going back into canola until they are allowed to (after minimum of three years in Mountain View County) through that procedure.”
Under the Alberta Agricultural Pest Act the duty of an individual, an owner or occupant of land or property must take active measures to prevent the establishment of pests on or in the land, control or destroy all pests on or in the land, and destroy any crop, vegetation for other matter than contributes or may contribute to the maintenance or spread of a pest on or in the land.
