It's official, sclerotinia has topped last year's provincial canola disease survey.
Manitoba Agriculture recently made the announcment, saying weather in 2016 created perfect conditions for the disease to thrive.
Field Crop Pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture Holly Derksen says sclerotinia is quite common amongst canola diseases, but it is rivaled by another disease for the top spot yearly.
"Often sclerotinia does top our list in canola, it kind of trade spots with black legged and generally black legged only tops the list in a drier year -- so black legged levels tend to remain the same from year to year -- but sclerotinia really thrives when there is higher moisture like there was in 2016."
Derksen also estimates yield losses to be about 10 per cent in affected fields.
