Organic Fusarium...

[furrowtickler]

There is a definite link with herbicide injury and the whole fusarium complex - from root rot all the way to head blights . This was enhanced with a cool damp spring and humid summer. Adding crop nutrition at herbicide time may well be part of the key to reducing chem injury and protecting yeilds.
Good to hear low disease levels in organic wheat after a high humidity summer. To me it proves the above issue on herbicides and disease levels

[farmaholic]

Breadwinner, spraying never helped here this year, to much pressure.

[hobbyfrmr]

Farmaholic, I am encouraging farmer to do what ever they choose within the law in a free country. You want to spray ten times ....giver. You want to tandem disk ten times...giver.
Everyone is looking for a difference so they can spar. Us vs. them type stuff.
I would say to compare organic vs. conventional organic costs are near the conventional, but they are in a different designation. Ie. fuel, vs. Chem. or (labour)/time and clover seed vs. fert.
Then the end result is half a crop, twice the piece.
So I think net result, I am not doing any better than conventional farmers.
Using nibs HRSW example, 27 bu/acre x 18.00/bushel every second year due to plowdown, is the same as growing 54 bushel per acre wheat at 4.50 every year.
I don't regard organic farming as better, it's just different.

[hobbyfrmr]

My neighbours grow 60-90 bushel wheat, 40-60 canola, and 150 bu oats. So they are well ahead of organic.
The are feeding the world.

[furrowtickler]

newguy, yes, that is another piece to a complex puzzle. Zero till and heavy trash is the carrier, wetter weather and crop rotation set the stage but is not the cause. It is figuring out what is the trigger for enhanced disease levels and how to try to prevent it. The growing season here is far too short for crop recovery from injury and resulting negative yield effects. Crops injured by herbicides are 5 X more susceptible to a host of diseases - no different than a human with pneumonia in the slums.
I have not left check strips for years, but I sure as hell will now....
Sorry - kinda off topic but not

[farmaholic]

Hobby, this wasn't intended to pit conventional against organic, if you see it that way, too bad. I am not going to reiterate what I've already said. I'm looking for honest answers and wondering if organics are up against the same problems conventionals are regarding disease and fusarium in wheat, durum and barley.

[BreadWinner]

I don't think heavy trash is the carrier but it provides a cool wet environment for the spores to multiply. I still think the carrier is the wind.

[hobbyfrmr]

Farmaholic,

I apologize, I cannot help you, or anyone on this subject.

[wmoebis]

I wonder if the CGC could shed some light from results of harvest survey.

[freewheat]

I wonder about the lack of a thick canopy of heads in organic fields?

[sumdumguy]

Basically, I don't thimk it matters much where the spores originate. The wind or whatever, but one thing I do know is that the 4 fields that we burned the stubble black prior to seeding had none while the rest had 4% despite being sprayed twice. Makes me think standing straw(and too much moisture) enables Fusarium to establish and attack developing durum. We also grow Glenn wheat near Regina, no Fusarium but it was seeded into Mustard stubble.

[grefer]

I talked to broker today who farms organically as well. I asked him if he has seen a noticeable difference in fusarium between conventional and organic. Absolutely was his answer. He also added that a conventional farming neighbour's durum was a write off. He said this fellow makes every effort to max his yields. Balls to the wall as sf3 would say. He also said that he(the broker)had grown and durum this year organically and it was fine.

[parsley]

Two cents worth...soil has to breathe. Even your lawn needs to be rooted around every once in awhile. Is continuous cropping year after year, a recipe for a breeding-ground for disease? Just wondering. Pars

[LEP]

Don't know parsley wonder what kind of a mess they hadve in the grassland national park on land never broken.

I always wonder when those from the old school says the land needs to be tilled. We'll it was in grass for hundreds of years before it was broken.

I agree that under intensive agriculture to maximize production you need diversity.

I have friends in the banking business that say when farmers says they are going organic,he knows 75% wil have an auction sale within five years. So it isn't the answer to everything.

[Braveheart]

In a word, no. The soil on the plains originated with plants that grew and were consumed by grazing animals. The mirror image of above ground foliage to root mass expanded and contracted with the cycle of growth and grazing. This mineralization cycle left behind the organic matter that produced our soils. It was always covered. It should always be covered.

Continuous cropping without crop rotation will surely lead to disease issues. But, are you suggesting fallow? Disaster for soil as loss of organic matter, erosion, and increased salinity will follow. Also, we're trying to sink carbon in the soil, not release it and burn up fossil fuel in doing so.

They've found fossilized fusarium spores thousands of years old. Conditions were right for it then. Conditions are right now.

I've seen an organic farmer struggle with fusarium so badly he has now returned to conventional farming to access fungicides.

Rotate crops. Hope plant breeders breed or genetically modify plants for resistance.

Endophytes and fungi from pea crops show bio control promise as well.

As far as soil breathing, that's what our earthworms do for us.