b'SEED-BORNE DISEASES IN CEREALSMoisture this fall shouldnt have a big impact on true seed-borne diseaseBy Don Norman Farmers can treat their own seed to get Glacier FarmMedia staff aheadofseed-bornediseases,butnotall M id-SeptembermoisturehasSmuts are oblivious products are directly available to producers, andtheymightnothaveequipmentthat raisedconcernsaboutapoten- to the amount of moisture offers an effective, even coating. tial increase in seed-borne cerealIf youre dribbling it through an auger diseases. you have. Weve seen it or something like that, you might not have Atleastintermsoftrueseed-bornejust as much in dry years completecoverageoftheseed,Kaminski diseases,ManitobaAgriculturefieldcropsaid.pathologist David Kaminski said those fearsas in wet years. Farmers can also take bin-run seed to a are unwarranted. commercial seed treater so it is all properly In fact, there arent that many seed-borneDavid Kaminski coated.However,Kaminskireiteratesthat diseases in cereals. I consider a seed-bornethe safest thing to do is buy certified seed.disease to be where infection gets inside theVirtually all the products that we have plant and grows up through it and then man- in the Guide to Field Crop Protection are ifests later on. crop is still green. Black heads on some plantssystemic products, and so they control these He said some of the major diseases peopleare evidence of infection. Loose smuts willsmuts.associate with moisture, like fusarium, arentblowawaybyharvesttimesoifscoutingTrueseed-bornesmutsmightnotbe infected that way. later, a farmer might not be aware of a prob- affectedbymoisture,butotherpathogens They get infected later from spores, saidlem. can be problematic for farmers who use bin-Kaminski, adding that true seed-borne dis- But keep that seed again, and youll haverun seed during wet years. easesincerealcropsareprimarilysmuts,probably a tenfold increase in the amount of whicharentgreatlyaffectedbymoistureloose smut in that field, which will begin to levels. affect yield, obviously.MoreCEREALS on page 13Smutsareoblivioustotheamountof moistureyouhave.Weveseenitjustas much in dry years as in wet years.Smuts are mainly an issue in wheat and barley but theyre not as big a problem as they used to be. Improvements in seed treat-ments have all but eliminated the disease in certified seed. However, farmers who plant bin-run seed should still watch for it.If the seed is healthy, there is no prob-lem with planting that grain from last years crop, said Kaminski. You will probably still get a good, vigorous crop.But he warned that if seeds are infected with smuts, they could be difficult to detect. Some are surface-borne, so there might be visible evidence of infection, but with true loose smuts, the infection is internal.Infection is highly unlikely if the grower bought certified seed because it is inspect-edandoftentreated.Ifaninfectiondoes occur in a crop planted with certified seed, Kaminski said its likely that spores blew in from an adjacent field. If infected seed is planted, the first evi-dence will appear when scouting while theCertified seed is a farmers best defence against seed-borne smuts. PHOTO: ANNE KIRK, MANITOBA AGRICULTURE12SEED MANITOBA 2025SEEDMB.CA'