While you’re in the field checking canola to see if it’s ready to be cut, or perhaps already swathing or harvesting it, it’s also a good time to assess the toll disease took on your crop.
Sclerotinia, blackleg and clubroot can all cause premature ripening, as disease symptoms become more obvious at the end of the season, explains Angela Brackenreed, Manitoba-based agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, in this Canola School episode.
She recommends taking a pair of clippers to the field to get a cross-section view of blackleg severity in plant stems, as she demonstrates in the video below. A trowel or shovel is also a must for digging up roots to check for signs of clubroot or root maggot without having clubroot galls slough off.
Source : AlbertaCanola