United Kingdom
March 31, 2014
Source: BASF - The Chemical Company
Early drilled rape crops, lengthening days and mild temperatures put oilseed rape crops way ahead of last year with many crops approaching flowering with good yield potential.
However, this mild, wet weather we are experiencing is expected to promote early activity of sclerotinia, with soil temperatures now warming rapidly. Sclerotia will start to germinate once soil temperatures are above 10oC and night-time air temperature is consistently above 7oC. Significant levels of sclerotia germination are expected to co-incide with the start of flowering putting a lot of oilseed rape crops at high risk of sclerotinia.
To help assess the disease risk BASF and ADAS have set up a Sclerotinia Monitoring service which tracks the germination of sclerotia at 6 monitoring sites across the UK. A weekly bulletin is published every Friday to report the risk at all sites across the UK. Click here to view this week's bulletin and see the report for your region.
A more local forecast is also available through Sclerotinia Outlook which provides a sclerotinia forecast at postcode level. Just register your name, email address and postcode. Click here to use the Sclerotinia Outlook tool.
What to do next if sclerotinia is forecast?
Where sclerotinia infection is forecast for your area, a protectant fungicide is recommended. Filan provides excellent control of sclerotinia and will provide a substantial return on investment even in the absence of disease. (Click here to find more information on Filan). Compass is valuable as a second spray. Both Compass and Filan can be safely mixed with pyrethroids if seed weevil is a problem.
Recommended Fungicide Programme for Sclerotinia control
| |
Early - mid flower |
Mid flower |
Late flower |
Comment |
| Medium - High Risk |
Filan 0.3-0.5kg/ha |
|
Compass 1.5l/ha |
Apply late flower spray if risk still high 3 weeks after Filan application |
| Low Risk |
|
Filan 0.3-0.5kg/ha
Or
Compass 1.5-2.25 l/ha |
|
|
Species
