Wheat Research

Weather based plant disease models
Ian Nichols, Weather INovations Incorporated

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) in winter wheat has become a worldwide concern, reducing both yield and grain quality. Ontario wheat growers suffered considerable losses due to this fungal disease in 1996 and in intermittent years thereafter. Efforts have been made to develop forecast models to predict both the incidence and severity of the Fusarium organisms and/or the level of the deoxynivalenol toxin (DON) in the grain at time of harvest.

The Ontario model, DONcast, was originally developed by Dr. David Hooker and Dr. Art Schaafsma in the early 2000s and has been delivered by Weather INnovations Incorporated (WIN) with the assistance of The Ontario Wheat Producers’ Marketing Board since 2002. The DONcast model is based on a mathematical statistical approach correlating weather information to the occurrence of DON at harvest.

The DONcast program in Ontario was originally delivered in map format. The map product spatially displayed the DON risk, referenced by heading date, across Ontario. The map version could not consider the roles that wheat variety, previous crops or tillage practices played on individual farms. Furthermore, because the entire province was referenced in a daily map as opposed to the heading date biofix of individual wheat fields, the map contained much extraneous information.

To address these issues Site Specific DONcast (SSD) is now provided. Growers need to sign up for SSD so specific variety, tillage, previous crops and heading dates are available to the model on a field by field basis when the grower calculates the SSD values.

Sponsorship from an industrial partner, in cooperation with funding from the OWPMB will allow Ontario growers subscription to SSD in 2009 without charge along with customer support. The sponsorship will also provide access to SPRAYcast and WHEATcast, two companion programs for the benefit of Ontario wheat producers.