Fusarium: Managing the Issue

Producers across the province are being encouraged to ‘Dig out their plows’ because with the disease problem that is plaguing this year’s corn crop, there isn’t a field that will be marketable. These are the types of sensationalistic comments arising from certain individuals in the research community. There are other comments as well; ‘most groups are silent and posturing to maintain market positions including the corn producers, seed corn companies, grain elevators, feed companies and even governments. They deny the severity and will not support critical research.’ So, essentially what is being suggested is that everyone involved in the industry is trying to cover this issue up, right underneath the noses of Ontario producers. This, of course, is preposterous.

OCPA has long understood the negative implications surrounding fusarium infection in corn. Given OCPA has supported research in this area for close to 20 years, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at both federal and provincial government and university levels, I would say we think it is an issue. OCPA is not the only stakeholder involved in these projects either; over the years, different seed companies have financially supported these projects jointly with OCPA as well as other producer associations. This fusarium ‘nut’ is not an easy one to crack because of many variables. Last year, in an effort to focus the research to an area where project stakeholders believe the quickest deliverable to the countryside would occur, a two year research agreement studying molecular markers was signed with Dr. K. Peter Pauls at the University of Guelph. Both Pioneer and Syngenta provide financial and in-kind support to this project; the Ontario Pork Producers also contribute financially.

This long-term research is fine and dandy; however, it does not help with the 2006 crop situation. To the credit of Dr. Art Schaafsma, an industry stakeholder call was pulled together to discuss the potential issue of high DON (fusarium) levels in corn. Prior to that call occurring, OMAFRA (Greg Stewart) and OCPA agreed that although there was much discussion around these disease issues, not a lot of factual data was available to back any claims. As a result, Greg led a testing program that performed sampling on 75 fields across Ontario. As the results flowed in, as well as results from
other sampling, it was quickly realized that there were some DON ratings from some fields that were a cause for concern. It was also learned that it seemed to be more of a ‘west of Guelph’ concern verses an ‘east of Guelph’ concern. Also somewhat alarming, was that visual symptoms did not tend
to be a good indicator of DON infection levels.

Armed with this information, the industry call made more sense. The audience contained balanced representation from the industry; OMAFRA, the feed industry, the seed industry, Agricorp, the hog industry as well as end-users participated. In addition to the information the testing numbers were
providing, it seemed that hybrid and field infection was very inconsistent within areas experiencing DON problems. Also, it was not just a Southwestern Ontario issue; recent crop tours by seed industry representatives identified similar issues with Ohio, Michigan and Indiana corn crops combined with increased stalk disease issues. It seemed like the timing was perfect to put together an information piece that would offer advice to growers in terms of assessing, testing, harvesting and handling this corn crop. With OMAFRA taking the lead, the CropPest Issue 18 was a result of the hard work of a few individuals as it was turned around quickly and disseminated soon after this call with the support of the industry.

Now that the initiation of managing through the fusarium issue has commenced, was there a fit for a broader research piece? One of the suggestions was variety testing within the Ontario Corn Committee trials (OCC). Another idea was to develop a DONcast prediction tool, similar to the one used
for wheat. One last idea that came forward was to revisit the same sites Greg had initially tested, both prior to harvest and at harvest. Since all these options cost money and require people resources, the only one currently moving forward is the site revisiting as it is deemed to produce the most relevant and usable information given existing constraints. OCPA did finance the initial testing of these sites; the 2 return visits will be paid for by OMAFRA, whom has agreed to put $15,000 towards the project.

Amid accusations of not listening and inaction, OCPA has been collecting and assessing factual information. As you may recall, it was not many months ago that the alarm bells were sounding, predicting a major fusarium problem in the wheat crop that never materialized. OCPA has done its best
to communicate and disseminate information with stakeholders throughout the industry. The hog industry has probably the most to lose; however, in communications with that group, 1986 (the last benchmark growing season corn producers experienced similar widespread fusarium infection levels) was not the last time they have had fusarium problems. In fact, they have feed additives they can use to help mitigate the effects of increased DON levels. In terms of the seed industry, many have launched some sort of an internal screening program to look at the fusarium issue. Sure it would be nice to have the OCC trials screened to see if there are patterns of infection with specific hybrids. However, the agriculture industry is small enough, and growers communicate with each other frequently enough that if there are hybrids prone to fusarium infection, it will become widely known quickly. It is not the province wide catastrophe that was originally portrayed. However, if you are a producer within one of the fusarium ‘hot spots’, it is a huge issue and OCPA isn’t for a minute, downplaying the severity of the fusarium problem in these areas. As was the case of immature corn in 1992, the industry for the most part is pulling together to deal with the issue the best that it can.