Earlier this year, the Pest Surveillance Initiative (PSI) was established in Winnipeg with the goal of testing canola soil for clubroot disease.
The lab is currently accepting samples from producers in an effort to help track the disease.
Holly Derksen, field crop pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development says the lab is able to detect clubroot at very low levels.
"We've only had two cases where we have seen symptoms in field," she said. "But through this testing and as well as testing we've done through the canola disease survey we have found it at extremely low levels in the soils. Not at levels able to cause disease symptoms in the fields...it's valuable information for our growers to know that it is there at some level."
Source : PortageOnline