Small Grains Disease and Pest Update 06/22/23

Jun 26, 2023

It's trying to rain at the moment in Crookston. So far it has only really wetted the sidewalk. The forecast remains, however, hopeful for rain throughout the region. Does that mean that a 5-alarm fire for leaf diseases and or Fusarium head blight is imminent? Just like a single robin doesn't make spring, a single weather system does not make for widespread and economic levels of leaf diseases or Fusarium head blight. The disease forecasting that is part of the NDAWN system in the tri-state area and the National Fusarium Risk Tool are weather-based models that try to quantify how good the conditions are for individual diseases to start infections.

Two more factors make the disease triangle, namely the presence of a host that is susceptible to a disease and the presence of the disease spores to cause infections. It is especially the latter that might be missing at this point, given the very low incidence of all diseases last year, the very dry conditions throughout last year, and the continued dry weather this spring. The leaf diseases like tan spot, Septoria, leaf, and stripe rust will need two or three generations of cycles before they would be able to reach economically damaging levels, something that for the earliest heading wheat seems unlikely. Likewise, I expect the risk models for FHB to remain low even if we have 4 days with cooler, wetter weather.

I am, therefore, at this point hesitant to recommend the application of a fungicide at Feekes 10.51/the beginning of anthesis. Only if you are in an area that has received more rainfall than the rest of us, would I contemplate a fungicide application. Do, however, scout for any insect problems (aphids, armyworms, grasshoppers, or cereal leaf beetle) to determine whether you are at or near the threshold before deciding not to spray a fungicide.

Fungicides will not prevent Bacterial Leaf Streak (BLS). Below is a picture taken by Amelia Landsverk, one of the scouts funded by your wheat check-off dollars. It shows the beginnings of a BLS infection in wheat. Note the long, elongated lesion in between the veins and the water-soaked appearance of the green leaf tissue on the edges of the lesion.

Source : umn.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”