A plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives says farmers in fusarium susceptible areas can utilize a combination of strategies to minimize infection.
Fusarium head blight is a fungal infection that affects cereal crops and, for swine producers, the biggest concern is the potential for mycotoxin contamination.
David Kaminski says fusarium favors hot humid conditions right when the crop is flowering.
"First strategies are choosing varieties with the best available resistance and the best we have right now is what's considered fair resistance to fusarium head blight.
Another thing producers might consider is spreading out seeding dates so that the crop is not all flowering at the same time.
The reason is that flowering time is when the crop is the most susceptible and the ability to intervene with a fungicide is limited by how many acres you can cover in a day.
If you have staggered seeding dates there is a potential for the risk to change and also, if the risk was high throughout that period, you would be able to cover those acres practically with a sprayer.
Knowing that there is a significant amount of infection in the field, there are some things you can do to leave behind infected kernels rather than harvesting them and putting them in the bin or taking them to the elevator for delivery.
Leaving the crop standing as late as possible for direct combining rather than swathing will allow the full deterioration of kernels that are infected so that they are more likely to be blown out the back.
Adjusting the wind settings on the combine can also blow out a higher percentage of those light infected kernels."
Kaminski says, because there's not a clear relationship between fusarium damaged kernels and toxin levels, it's imperative to have any grain that's going to be fed to animals tested especially in years when fusarium infections are known to be present.
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