The 2025 Cereal and Pulse Disease Guides are now available on the Agriculture Victoria website.

Overall, the risk from foliar diseases in crops heading into the 2025 season is reduced due to the dry conditions in spring 2024 and summer 2025. However, it is important to understand the conditions that favour each disease. The widespread cultivation of susceptible varieties can still increase the risk from disease and if conditions become conducive, some yield losses may occur. A drier season also means slow stubble breakdown, it is important to remember that if stubble is still in paddocks from previous seasons, there is a potential for carryover of stubble borne diseases.

An increased number of wheat paddocks in Victoria have been observed, with soil borne pathogens causing; Take all, Root lesion nematode, Crown rot, Common root rot, Pythium root rot, Rhizoctonia root rot, Eradu patch, Fusarium root rot, and Charcoal rot, some of which can also infect pulse and canola crops. This implies that there is potentially high risk of disease carry over into the 2025 season. Hence, it is vital to have good management practices in place such as appropriate crop rotation and use of resistant rated varieties.

Cereal rusts:

The cereal rust risk will be low during 2025. However, avoiding susceptible varieties remains an effective strategy to minimise yield losses, even in seasons with low risk.

Stripe rust identification, management, and epidemiology can be found in ‘Identification & Management of Field Crop Diseases in Victoria’.

Growers and advisors are encouraged to adopt a three-step approach to assess stripe rust infection.

1. Review variety ratings using a current cereal disease guide to ensure the ratings are current. Do not use last year’s ratings. The current Victorian guide can be found on the Agriculture Victoria website..
2. Monitor crops closely after sowing.
3. Use the StripeRustWM app to support decision making for Stripe rust in wheat. The app can be downloaded from the Apple and Google Play stores.

Stubble borne diseases

Stubble is the primary source of inoculum for several important diseases in cereals and pulses. With drier seasonal conditions it is likely stubble will carryover several seasons which can cause disease carryover. Stubble borne diseases, include Septoria tritici blotch of wheat, Net blotches of barley, Botrytis Chocolate spot or Botrytis grey mould, and Ascochyta blight of lentil, faba bean and vetch. The risk in 2025 will be high where crops are sown in close rotation, such as wheat sown into wheat stubble or close to wheat stubble (for Septoria tritici blotch), and respective for each crop. In pulses, it is important to remember Botrytis sp. affects multiple crop species, including faba bean, lentil and vetch. Review variety ratings using a current cereal or pulse disease guides, to ensure the ratings are current. Do not use last year’s ratings. The current Victorian guide can be found on the Agriculture Victoria website. Environmental conditions over the coming months will be crucial in determining the amount of disease that develops.

Growers should:

1. Avoid planting cereal or pulse crops into or adjacent to paddocks where there was disease during 2024.
2. Avoid susceptible varieties.
3. Sow healthy vigorous seed.
4. Use fungicidal seed dressings where applicable.
5. Implement a fungicide management plan.
6. Once sown, monitor crops starting from early stages of development for early detection of important diseases

For further information on each disease and diagnostic details visit:  Septoria Leaf Blotch of Wheat – Field Crop Diseases Victoria

2025 Disease Guides

The 2025 Victorian Cereal and Pulse Disease Guides are now available on the Agriculture Victoria website via the links below, AppleBooks, and attached to this email. These guides provide access to the latest disease ratings.

Cereal Disease Guide https://bit.ly/3lGxDqh or (AppleBooks)

Pulse Disease Guide https://bit.ly/3lvUdSe  or (AppleBooks)

Canola blackleg ratings can be found in the Blackleg Management Guide https://bit.ly/2NDLrFb or in the BlacklegCM app.

Blackspot in Field Peas

For growers or advisors with field peas, blackspot manager can assist with determining the risk of Blackspot in your paddocks. This can inform a management plan. You can subscribe to the free SMS blackspot alert service. Text ‘Blackspot’ with your name and nearest weather station or location to 0475 959 932 or email [email protected].

Sample Collection

Fusarium Crown Rot

Agriculture Victoria is collaborating with NSW Department of Primary Industries, Research and Development (DPIRD) to test for Fusarium crown rot (FCR) as part of a new soil-borne disease initiative from GRDC.   For further details and to request a sampling kit contact [email protected]

Wheat Powdery Mildew

Agriculture Victoria is looking to develop an assay to detect powdery mildew from spore traps and to make fungicide resistance detection easier. To do this we are asking for powdery mildew samples from across Victoria this year. For further information or to submit a sample please contact Saidi Achari [email protected] or [email protected]

Up Coming Events

July

July 10 – Industry pre-season update and field day

Please join us for a pre-season update on field crop diseases. There will be a strong focus on fungicide resistance across all crops and how to manage this issue. Registration details will be sent closer to the event. To add to your calendar click here.

When:  July 10^th 2025, 9am – 12noon

Where: Horsham Smart Farm, 110 Natimuk Road, Horsham, Vic 3400

October

October 14 and 15 – Disease identification and management training

The Horsham pathology group will be hosting 2, one-day disease identification and management workshops in October this year. This training provides hands on experience identifying diseases in all major crops as well as covering fundamentals of plant disease management.

Who would benefit most from this training? Junior agronomists and those looking to update their knowledge base.

Topics covered will include:

• How crop diseases work
• Cereal disease management and identification (wheat, barley, oats)
• Canola disease management and identification
• Pulse disease management and identification (Chickpea, faba bean, field pea, lentil)
• Fungicide resistance
• Insect identification and virus vectors

Register your interest here https://forms.office.com/r/GAALmq6vpV