THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2012
VOL. 90 | NO. 33 | $3.75
THEY PERENNIALSUNFLOWERS | ARE POSSIBLE? P63
SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923
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Richard and Clayton Osinski of Rocky View Farms combined a yellow pea crop near Eastend, Sask., the first week of August. Yields averaged 35 bushels per acre. | DWANE MORVIK PHOTO
CROP DISEASE | INFECTION RATE
Aster yellows bites into canola yield Damage in wheat also seen | Extent of devastation across Prairies alarming agronomists BY SEAN PRATT SASKATOON NEWSROOM
Tiny pests are causing massive damage to this year’s bountiful crops. Aster yellows disease was brought north from the U.S. Midwest on the bodies of the six-spotted leafhopper, a white insect the size of an aphid. “We’ve lost hundreds of millions of dollars to aster yellows,” said Ieuan Evans, a forensic pathologist with Agri-Trend Agrology Ltd. “I’ve lived in the Prairies for 40 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen (aster yellows) and the most widespread I’ve ever seen it.”
Drought in the U.S. Midwest forced hundreds of billions of leafhoppers to migrate to Western Canada in search of food. They rose in columns thousands of feet into the air and drifted north on the winds. “(When) they hit a cold front below 15 C, they drop to the ground like confetti at a wedding,” said Evans. The leafhoppers descended on fields throughout Western Canada one month earlier than usual in midMay, infecting cereal and oilseed plants at the vulnerable seedling stage of development. Three to five percent of the hoppers usually carry aster yellows disease,
but tests showed the rate of infection with the phytoplasma, which is similar to a virus, was as high as 12 percent this year for some unknown reason. That has resulted in infection rates from trace amounts to 40 percent in canola crops in all three prairie provinces. “I would stick my neck out and say the average for the Prairies may be as much as 10 percent,” said Evans. Statistics Canada is estimating a 16 million tonne canola crop, which means a potential yield loss of 1.6 million tonnes. At today’s prices of about $630 per tonne, that’s a $1 bil-
lion loss in canola alone. But what stunned Evans is that the damage is every bit as extensive in wheat. The disease has caused yellowish to reddish foliage in wheat fields along with the death of randomly scattered plants at the early milk stage of development. He said he was floored by the extreme damage to wheat fields near Swan River, Man., northeastern Saskatchewan and central and northern Alberta, where there are fields with 30 to 40 percent bleached or dying wheat heads. ASTER YELLOWS TAKE TOLL , PAGE 2 »
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