| Arable
Look out now for Verticillium stripe in the field
Some crops will be showing signs of premature ripening at this point.
S uch symptoms can be due to a number of diseases, but Verticillium stripe( previously known as Verticillium wilt) is one that should be noted.“ It is worth going out to inspect crops and see if this disease can be found,” says Neil Groom, Technical Director of Grainseed.
“ If you have Verticillium in your soils, it can be there for over 20 years and the only way to live with it is to grow a variety which has good Verticillium resistance or tolerance. You have no other choice. Using crop intervals or rotations is impractical and there are no approved chemicals. If you don’ t grow a resistant variety, you will have to suffer the consequences in future years. We suggest that those who are seeing Verticillium stripe now or in the past few years make a proactive decision to grow a resistant variety this autumn.”
ADAS report that Verticillium stripe symptoms are seen as the crops starts to ripen. What to look out for are yellowing leaves, premature ripening of branches and grey striping down stems, often on one side only but it can be the whole cross-section of a stem. Underneath the vertical stripes, if you peel off the outer stem layer you will see grey vascular tissue. If you use a hand lens, you can see tiny black dots or microsclerotia. The microsclerotia survive in the soil for over 20 years to infect subsequent crops, hence the impractical nature of crop intervals in its control.
“ To control it sustainably, you must use resistant varieties,” says Neil.“ Once you have identified Verticillium, you need to start thinking seriously about how to handle it. Unlike other diseases of rape, there is no proven or approved fungicide to control it and so growers must rely on cultural control measures – and the only one you really have open to you is to choose varieties with known resistance. Grainseed oilseed rape varieties including Es Mambo have proven resistance to Verticillium, following several years’ independent trials and commercial experience.”
Neil advises growers to grow rape varieties with a good overall combined disease resistance.“ In cereals you don’ t think twice about studying disease resistance ratings in detail before choosing your variety. This needs to be the same for rape varieties now. A good variety needs to have resistance to Verticillium, Phoma, as well as to Light Leaf spot. Es Mambo has a 7.8 rating for Phoma stem canker and a 6.4 for Light Leaf spot plus it is the Number 1 performing variety in AICC Verticillium trials. Es Alegria has a 7.4 rating for Phoma, 5.4 for Light Leaf spot and has good tolerance to Verticillium as well. Genetic resistance to Phoma in all Grainseed varieties is multi-gene and so unlikely to break down.”
When growers are looking more closely at their growing costs, choosing a variety such as Mambo where you can be sure of its strong disease resistance across the board can save you money, says Neil.
Verticillium stripe symptoms
“ Mambo also shows exceptional autumn vigour, helping the crop grow away from diseases and pests, increasingly important with the pressure of cabbage stem flea beetles at planting. It also has good oil levels of 46 %. As a variety it gives growers peace of mind with its strong broad disease resistance, its low biomass and its vigour characteristics.”
In the future AHDB is looking to assess and rate susceptibility of a range of varieties to Verticillium and these could be added to the published listings in 2020.
Azotic Technologies Envita ™ launching commercially in North America in autumn 2018
BBC acknowledges Azotic in World news broadcast.
A zotic Technologies, the UK-based global ag-tech company, is launching its Envita™ naturalnitrogen fixing technology commercially across North America in autumn 2018 following extensive trials, under the Envita™ Growing Programme, across approximately 3,000 acres involving 58 farmers growing either corn or soybeans. Feedback from the growers and the initial results from these trials are extremely encouraging.
Envita™ is a naturally occurring food grade bacteria( Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus) that enables plants to fix nitrogen from the air and replace up to 50 per cent of
12 | Farming Monthly | July 2018
their nitrogen needs as an alternative to fertiliser. It is environmentally-friendly, costreducing and is also proven to increase crop yields.
Commercialisation of rice in Asia is also on the company’ s agenda. Three rice trials have recently been carried out in Vietnam; the overall response was a mean average 15 % yield increase across all the field trials. Further rice trials are being carried out in Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.
Azotic was founded in 2012 to commercialise the technology discovered initially nearly 20 years ago by Professor Edward Cocking, Fellow of the Royal Society and Director at the Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation at the University of Nottingham.
Peter Blezard, CEO of Azotic, said:“ The Envita™ Growing Programme trials were highly encouraging, still with some verification of the results to come. This should prove beyond all doubt the efficacy of our revolutionary technology in making crops nitrogen-fixing and with the resulting increased yields.”
The official commercial launch of Envita™ will be at the Agriculture 4.0 conference in San Francisco on 15th and 16th November 2018, where Azotic’ s CEO Peter Blezard has been invited to make a keynote speech to 2000 delegates entitled“ Nature’ s nitrogen will fix planet’ s food needs”.
Azotic North America is responsible for commercialisation in the US and Canada. Ray Chyc, CEO of Azotic North America based in Guelph, Canada, said:“ Azotic’ s technology is world-class- it increases yield while providing a significant positive environmental impact, as well as contributing in a major way to solving the issue of global scarcity of food.
“ Azotic’ s technology will change global agricultural practice in the years to come.”
On 8th June 2018, BBC World Service featured Azotic in major coverage entitled‘ Making food crops that feed themselves” https:// www. bbc. co. uk / news / busin ess-44357673
The accompanying BBC broadcast is at https:// www. facebook. com / bbc news / videos / 2005856056100177 /
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