According to the Manitoba Crop Pest Update, there has been a drastic decrease in all of the major diseases found in crops.

Field Crop Pathologist, David Kaminski says this is because of this year’s dry conditions.

“Things like grasshoppers build up in drier years, but diseases generally depend on a wetter environment, especially bacterial diseases - we see them when there are frequent rains.”

David says one of the most notable things is the near-total absence of sclerotinia in canola and fusarium head blight in wheat. In soybeans, septoria brown spot was more prevalent than Bacterial blight, but all of the three main foliar diseases were minimal.

“Disease was one less thing to worry about in most cases for producers this year, but they did have a really tough battle against insects.”

The grasshopper issue is not over for growers yet, as newly emerging winter cereals can be very attractive to grasshoppers. For winter wheat and other late-summer seeded crops, seeding near the end of the optimum planting window is recommended to reduce the risk and severity of grasshopper damage.