Growers warned to get on top of disease early as big battle looms

That was the message from experts at the Grains Research Development Corporation update held in Forbes.

NSW Department of Primary Industries senior plant pathologist, Dr Steven Simpfendorfer, said that conditions in 2022 had created an increase in cereal diseases across the state with Fusarium head blight (FHB), stripe rust and Septoria tritici blotch the major concerns.

He said that FHB was the most queried disease in NSW, and had moved into areas of the state which had never seen it before.

"I don't have to tell you that 2022 was the biggest disease year we've really seen in cereals," he said.

"We can't control the weather but we have got to control some of the things that we can and that starts this year.

"We have some of the worst grain quality we've ever seen because of that late rain. So even if it's not your own seed, you're getting seed in from outside, you need to know the (germination) vigour, and you need to know what the Fusarium levels are.

"If you think there was any head blight in there, it is going to have implications.

"We don't want 2023 to be the year of the re-sow. There is no money in re-sowing.

"There is plenty of good seed out there, there is just the odd really bad seed and that's the stuff we are trying to stop going around because it won't come up.

"If it does come up, you're going to introduce really high levels of crown rot."

Dr Simpfendorfer believes high inoculum levels and early began the stripe rust epidemic last year with the first NSW infection recorded in mid-May - the second earliest on record.

"We've had multiple patho-types of stripe rust and they give different reactions to different varieties," he said.

"Sometimes it looks like a variety changes between years and you think it was really susceptible in 2021, but nowhere near as bad last year.

"Nothing has changed in the wheat variety, it is the distribution of those different strains of the stripe rust pathogen that is what is changing between years and can change within seasons too.

"They are windborne, they just blow. It's random.

"We can't pick what's going to happen and that's why you can get these really different reactions with individual varieties."

Dr Simpfendorfer said that growers need to be ready to ask the questions when it comes to disease in their crops.

"We have had a run of three wet years and we're getting diseases we've never seen before," he said.

"If we go dry again, we probably won't see them again for a long time.

"Growers don't need to know it all, but they need to have a basic understanding to ask the critical questions of their agronomist, or to get their agro to ask the critical question.

"Agros can talk to me too. We're all in this together and don't be afraid to ask questions."

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He believes last year was an anomaly and the situation will be very different this year.

"Let's keep 2022 in perspective. It was one out of the bag," he said.

"Are we really going to get another one? No.

"That's going to change what happens with some of these diseases dramatically.

"Yes, it's been wet. So we've been getting our leaf wet requirement for these diseases to infect. But temperature is a big player of what we're having issues with. Stripe rust has had perfect conditions the last couple years.

"Cool temperatures favour it and extends the phenology of your wheat crop, slowing the growth breakdown."

Dr Simpfendorfer said everyone must be vigilant when it comes to controlling these diseases.

"What you do affects others around you. These things are windborne for hundreds of kilometres," he said.

"The other thing is, the more spores we've got, we increase the risk of mutations within the package of population.

"So we can lose other genes. If we lose genes in things like Lancer we are in big trouble.

"We don't want susceptible varieties building up big spore numbers with a higher probability of getting mutations."