NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

October 29, 1998

Surveys Show Scab Severity Drops in 1998

Disease surveys conducted by researchers at North Dakota State University indicate that Fusarium head blight (FHB or scab) took less of a toll on wheat yields than in previous years. The effect of scab on this year's barley crop was related largely to quality, with levels of vomitoxin (deoxynivalenol or DON) in barley often too high for use by malting and brewing companies.

"The disease was again the most damaging in the northeast on hard red spring wheat," says Marcia McMullen, extension plant pathologist at NDSU. "Durum fields in the north central and northwest parts of the state also had economic losses."

McMullen estimates that producers lost about 5.2 million bushels of hard red spring wheat and about 4.6 million bushels of durum. She adds, "This is considerably less than in previous years."

Even so, McMullen says hard red spring wheat producers could easily have lost twice as many bushels had acreage in the northeast been at the 1992-1996 average. Instead, 1998 wheat acreage in the northeast was nearly 31 percent smaller than that five-year average.

The use of more scab-tolerant varieties and later plantings also helped reduce this year's scab problem, McMullen says. In addition, a relatively dry July helped reduce scab severity for some, although the rain that came in June when some of the wheat crops were flowering was responsible for the scab problems other producers experienced.

The area included in the barley disease survey stretched beyond the northeast crop reporting district to Ward County in the west and to Cass County in the south, McMullen says. Scab was present everywhere within the survey area, but as with hard red spring wheat, the severities were greatest in the northeast district. Also as with wheat, later-planted barley showed slightly less-severe scab infections.

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Source: Marcia McMullen (701) 231-7627

Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136