News Diseases Insect Pests Pests Weed Management
No disease concerns yet, says Manitoba crop pest update

The Province of Manitoba released its crop pest update recently, indicating what insects, disease and weeds growers should be on the lookout for:

Insects: Flea beetles are out feeding on the volunteer canola. Until recently it had been mainly striped flea beetles, but this past week we have been seeing crucifer flea beetle as well. When observing flea beetles yesterday at the University of Manitoba research farm near Carman, the majority of the flea beetles were crucifer flea beetles.

Some grasshoppers can be found while sampling grassy vegetation around fields, but mainly non-pest species so far. There have been a few reports of people finding dingy cutworms, but no reports of cutworm control being needed so far.

Aster leafhopper has been found in the southwest, but so far just in an isolated area. Levels are low in the Central region; out of 80 sweeps in the Carman area we found only one aster leafhopper, one potato leafhopper, and 22 leafhoppers of non-economic species (some a similar size and colour as aster leafhopper, but without the spots on the head).

Diseases: No reports of disease concerns as yet. Warm windy weather is generally not conducive to either fungal or bacterial disease. Diseases that rely on a vertebrate vector, such as wheat streak mosaic, barley yellow dwarf and others, may not be so dependent on weather but rather on abiotic stresses to seedling crops.

Weeds: What a change from the last couple of springs – so many weeds emerging due to the earlier moisture and heat. Lots of burn-off sprays have gone down and continue as seeding progresses. Warm soil temperatures are leading to rapid crop emergence and scouting is essential to make sure your crop has not emerged if you are still planning a burn-off spray. Consult the product pages in the Guide to Field Crop Protection 2023 and the product label for proper timing of burn-off sprays. Some products are pre-seed or post-seed, pre-emergent to the registered crops while others are pre-seed only.