Using the Alberta Climate Information Service Fusarium Risk Tool

The Fusarium Risk Tool assists growers with making a spraying decision for more accurate timing of a fungicide application.

This mobile-friendly forecasting tool provides local and hourly Fusarium risk levels using near-real-time weather data that growers can correspond with the correct heading stage for appropriate fungicide application timing.

“Accessing the Fusarium Risk Tool on your mobile device is very easy,” says Jennifer Lang-Gorman, technical operations specialist with Alberta Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development. “Start by going to http://www.weatherdata.ca/ on your device and when prompted to use the mobile friendly page, select ‘Okay’.”

From there, click on the site menu icon at the top left of the page, scroll down to the disease section and click on ‘Fusarium Head Blight.’

“You will notice that the Fusarium Head Blight risk is calculated between June 1 and August 15,” points out Lang-Gorman.

Step-by-step instructions

• Select the site by clicking on the name and select the station name from the listing or the map by clicking on the desired station.
• Select the desired date by clicking on the calendar icon in the date row.
• The disease risk indicator will display the severity and risk of infection over the previous 10 days for the area covered by the selected station.
• Scroll down the page to view the precipitation, temperature, and relative humidity for the current station over the previous week.
• There is a slide zoom tool at the bottom of the page to adjust the view over your selected time series.

This tool can be used to evaluate the real-time environmental risk of Fusarium, at any location in the province, as the crop begins to head and flower. Knowing the risk of temperature and rainfall to drive infection and disease development may be useful in making fungicide application decisions.