Space Flight
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SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 74, No. 25 | $1.75
June 23, 2016
Grain-shipping measures extended one year Grain companies and farm group welcome the move and vow to keep the pressure on Ottawa for a permanent solution
manitobacooperator.ca
Early, frequent fungicide applications can be a waste AAFC cereal pathologist Myriam Fernandez says it can also encourage more kernel diseases such as black point
BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff and ALEX BINKLEY Co-operator contributor
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leased and relieved. That’s how western Canadian grain farmers and elevator companies are reacting to a one-year extension of emergency grain-shipping measures first implemented by the former Conservative government in 2014 to address a backlog in grain shipping. The four key provisions, which came into effect under the Fair Rail for Farmers Act, were set to expire August 1. They give the federal government the power to set minimum grain movement volumes for the railways, provide for arbitration of service level agreements between shippers and the railways and compensation for rail service failures and extend interswitching to 160 kilometres from 30. Interswitching allows an elevator serviced by one railway to ask another to move its grain, so long as there is a connection within the prescribed distance.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research shows early fungicide applications aimed at protecting wheat from leaf spot diseases doesn’t provide any benefit when infection is light and can do more harm than good. PHOTO: Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture
See SHIPPING on page 6 »
BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff
Publication Mail Agreement 40069240
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armers can be a little too ready to pull out the sprayer and apply fungicides and may be doing more harm than good. When there’s little or no leaf disease present in a field, those early applications are an expense for no benefit and could do more harm by encouraging other diseases such as black point, says Myriam Fernandez, a cereal pathologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). “You are wasting your time, you are wasting money and you may be causing further problems along the way,” Fernandez said in an interview June
14, from her base at the AAFC Swift Current Research and Development Centre. She was speaking about research she and AAFC agronomist Bill May conducted between 2001 and 2006 that AAFC recently highlighted in an online publication. “The effect of the fungicide does not carry over to later growth stages. So if you apply it early on I’m sorry, you’re going to have to apply it later again (if the infection warrants it).” However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when an early fungicide application to battle leaf spots is warranted, Fernandez added. There’s no formal leaf spot threshold, but spraying should be considered if more than five per cent of the penultimate leaves are infected, she said.
The penultimate leaf is the last before the flag leaf emerges. “If you only have the odd spot then it is not worth spraying because all (wheat) seedlings are going to have some spots because that is just the nature of the beast,” Fernandez said. “If you have a lot of leaf spotting — it is happening this year in a lot of places — at the seedling stage and later on, then yes, go ahead (and spray).” Their research was done on durum wheat, but Fernandez said the same principle likely applies to spring and winter wheat. “You have companies pushing for early application at the seedling stage and a little bit later,” Fernandez said. See FUNGICIDE on page 6 »
“CHICK” THE MAIL: Posties promise bee and chick deliveries even if striking: PG. 13