There are more signs of Clubroot showing up in the Province.

Barb Ziesman is a Plant Disease Specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture and says they have identified clubroot in 37 fields in Northern Saskatchewan.

“In 2017 we had found it mainly in the North West and North Central, so Crop Districts 9A and 9B. In 2018 we found that the area with Clubroot had actually expanded into Crop Districts 7B, 5B and 6B.”

She says in areas that have identified a clubroot problem producers should extend their crop rotation with a 2-year break from Canola and grow clubroot resistant canola varieties. Ziesman says the disease is soil-borne and impacts the crop yield.

“The pathogen can be very long-lived, so many of the spores will live for two to five years but some of the spores will live for up to twenty years. So what that means is that once its present there is no way to eradicate it so we need to start managing it. So if we can start preventing the pathogen from being introduced that’s the first step for Clubroot Management. Then that vigilant monitoring to detect it as early as possible is also going to be really important.”

Where the disease has not been found producers should not seed canola back to back, scout their fields for the disease and minimize soil movement.