ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER AGRONOMY 11 continued on page 12 Although dark skies were building over much of southwestern Ontario on the afternoon of September 3, the mood on the ground in a pair of West Elgin fields was far more optimistic. In these fields — one planted with corn and the other with soybeans — Albert Tenuta, field crop pathologist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness (OMAFA), and his team study how crop varieties perform when exposed to local disease pressure, and how different management tools affect those results. The goal is to verify whether the tolerance characteristics promoted in corn and soybean varieties hold up under southwestern Ontario growing conditions, a message Tenuta shared clearly with the visiting farmers as storm clouds gathered overhead. LOCAL PRESSURE, RELIABLE DATA Tenuta is the first to admit he delights in seeing diseased crops. Diseased crops, after all, mean data, and that data helps inform future disease management. The reason for partnering with growers in the two West Elgin fields is the consistency in disease pressure the sites provide, particularly for soybean cyst nematode (SCN) and root rots in soybeans, and tar spot in corn. “When we put crops in a field with good, even disease pressure, we get good results,” says Tenuta, in this case referring specifically to high SCN pressure. He later generates a chorus of laughter by saying, “There is excellent disease pressure here. I love it.” The value of generating good local data is twofold: first, so farmers in southwestern Ontario know the varieties they are purchasing work as advertised, and second, so corn and soybean breeders can improve their breeding programs. The research plots also serve as a means of benchmarking yield potential. Tenuta and his team work extensively with both public and private breeders, with a wide array of corn and soybean varieties undergoing analysis each year. “Whether it’s public breeding or private breeding, it all starts here,” Tenuta says. SOYBEAN DISEASE PRESSURE Generalities aside, the September 3 event covered the specifics of Tenuta’s ongoing disease research program and provided an overview of useful best management practices in disease management. SCN populations in Tenuta’s soybean research area are estimated to range between 2,000 and 5,000 eggs. Despite this, Horst Bohner, soybean specialist with the ministry and one of the attendees, says it is possible for varieties with good SCN tolerance to achieve full yield potential, as high as 100 bushels per acre in some cases, if “everything else lines up.” This assessment was anecdotally confirmed by a representative from Devolder Farms in Chatham, who said they had achieved a fairly uniform 98-bushel crop in one field in recent years. Tenuta reiterated that local environments “can react differently” to soybean varieties, and for this reason, a lot of the SCN tolerance ratings in local seed guides use data from his team’s research. He also encouraged attendees to actively monitor for the presence of SCN, particularly if they are experiencing mysterious yield losses. To check for SCN, growers must dig, not pull, soybean plants to examine roots. Pulling plants, he explains, leaves nematode eggs in the ground and misconstrues SCN assessments. Albert Tenuta, field crop pathologist with OMAFA, showed growers how to count SCN populations in the field (left) and examples of red crown rot (above) at a recent event in West Elgin. Photo: Matt McIntosh
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