There is a high risk of disease carryover, particularly cereal rusts, this coming season given the amount of green bridge present. Please find some useful information below.
Green bridge
Summer rainfall across Victoria has led to the establishment of a green bridge. The green bridge plays an important role in the lifecycle of diseases such as cereal rusts and aphid borne viruses. Crops sown this year will be at greater risk of these diseases as a result.
Robert Park (from the cereal rust survey) recently presented out the southern GRDC updates. His presentation can found here. The GRDC update paper can be found here.
Further information can also be found in the GRDC green bridge factsheet at www.grdc.com.au/GRDC-FS-GreenBridge
Stubble-borne diseases
The high yielding 2021 season in many areas has resulted in high levels of stubble-borne disease inoculum for most crops. These include diseases in barley (SFNB, NFNB and Scald), wheat (Septoria blotch, yellow leaf spot), oats (Red leather leaf, bacterial blight), faba beans (chocolate spot), and lentil (Botrytis grey mould). It is important to take the high disease risk into account when planning for the 2022 season. Strategies to reduce the risk of losses, include growing more resistant varieties (information can be found in the 2022 disease guides) and avoiding paddocks with infected stubble from the same crop.
2022 Disease guides
The 2022 Victorian Cereal and Pulse Disease Guides are now available on the Agriculture Victoria website via the links below and attached to this email. These guides provide access to the latest disease ratings.
Cereal Disease Guide https://bit.ly/3lGxDqh
Pulse Disease Guide https://bit.ly/3lvUdSe
Canola blackleg ratings can be found in the blackleg management guide https://bit.ly/2NDLrFb or in the BlacklegCM app.
Apps for managing in crop disease
New apps for iPads and Tablets have been released over the last few years to help with the management of blackleg and sclerotinia in canola and stripe rust and yellow leaf spot of wheat. These apps are BlacklegCM, SclerotiniaCM, YellowSpotWM and StripeRustWM, respectively.
These apps help identify management strategies, such as cultivar choice, fungicide application, and/or paddock choice, that can be used to minimise yield loss due to the disease and improve economic returns. The apps are available for free download from the Google Play Store and iTunes Store by searching for the app name.
Further information
The website hosts articles, videos, and podcasts from leading crop disease researchers in Victoria. This is where the most recent research updates are likely to be found.
The “Identification and management of field crop diseases in Victoria” manual can also be found under the resources tab.
