No New Cases of Visible Clubroot Symptoms in Saskatchewan in 2024

Jan 17, 2025

The spread of clubroot remained mostly in check in Saskatchewan in 2024.

Released earlier this week, the province’s annual clubroot distribution map shows that no new cases of canola plants with visible symptoms of clubroot were identified in the province last year, keeping the total number of fields with confirmed visible symptoms at 82 since 2008. However, two additional fields were found to have clubroot pathogen DNA in the soil, increasing the total number of confirmed fields through DNA testing to 45 since 2008. (See 2024 clubroot distribution map below).

This past year marked the second straight year that no new cases of visible clubroot symptoms were detected, although the two additional fields identified with the clubroot pathogen were one more than in 2023.

As recently as 2020, instances of clubroot were much more common. In that year, the province confirmed 24 new cases of visible symptoms, while the number of fields with the clubroot pathogen jumped by 18 from the previous year.

A soil-borne disease, clubroot can cause up to 100% yield loss in the worst cases.

Saskatchewan’s 2024 clubroot monitoring program was completed through a partnership between the Ministry of Agriculture and SaskOilseeds. More than 480 fields across Saskatchewan were tested as part of the initiative.

As the clubroot pathogen remains a major challenge for canola production, industry leaders highlight the need for advanced research and proactive farming strategies going forward.

"As a commission, we continue to invest levy dollars into research to develop canola cultivars resistant to the clubroot pathogen," SaskOilseeds Research Chair Codie Nagy said. "At the farm-level, it is critical that farmers scout and test, employ a suitable crop rotation, and make a plan to manage the disease if it is found."

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Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.