Farmscape for October 19, 2005  (Episode 1942)

Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives reports fusarium head blight infection has been particularly high in Manitoba this year.

Fusarium is a fungal infection that primarily affects cereal crops and it's of particular concern to swine producers because certain species produce mycotoxins.

In contrast to Saskatchewan, where the severity of fusarium infection has actually declined this year, rates of infection have increased in Manitoba.

Provincial  Plant Pathologist David Kaminski says fusarium levels in spring planted cereals are higher than they've been over the last two years.

Clip-David Kaminski-Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives 

We have heard through the harvest survey done by the Canadian Grain Commission that, in hard red spring wheat for example, over 40 percent of the samples from Manitoba have been downgraded due to fusarium damaged kernels.

That's a significant amount and it's the first time in three years that fusarium has been the cause of that downgrading ahead of other factors.

One thing we don't have a good handle on yet is regional variation but, I'd have to say that there is variation.

In each region their are some fields that had no fusarium and others that had significant levels, even high levels but there is as yet no consistency of variation across the regions.

Kaminski says the Canadian Grain Commission survey also indicates that in hard white spring wheat, a type of wheat that's taking off in terms of acreage, snowbird had a slightly level of downgrading.

He says a general rule of thumb is that the mycotoxins tend to remain roughly on par with the levels of fusarium infection but he points out that doesn't always hold true.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council