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The U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative has launched a new email and text-message alert system capable of warning farmers about wheat and barley scab outbreaks.
South Dakota Cooperative Extension Plant Pathologist Larry Osborne said that the system delivers risk information about Fusarium head blight, also known as scab, directly to the cellular telephones or inboxes of producers who are subscribed to the free service.
Alerts go out as soon as local experts make updates to the forecast commentary. To subscribe, enter your contact information at the following website:http://scabusa.org/fhb_alert.php.
Osborne has the primary responsibility for keeping the commentary up to date and for making sure that growers in South Dakota get the best information as soon as it is posted.
“Fusarium head blight, or scab as it is commonly called, is well known to farmers in both South Dakota and North Dakota,” Osborne said. “The fungus that causes scab reemerged in the late 1980s to threaten spring wheat and barley crops in the region, and unfortunately, the disease has been a fixture in the state ever since.”
Osborne said that the disease has spread to winter wheat production areas within the last 10 years.
“Since 2004, scientists in South Dakota and other states have provided commentary on the Fusarium Head Blight (Scab) Prediction Center’s website,” Osborne said. “We do this in order to help growers and crop managers interpret disease-risk maps available online, but now we are giving producers the opportunity to request a service more tailor-made for their personal needs.”
The website Osborne mentioned is available at this link: www.wheatscab.psu.edu.
Plant pathologists at South Dakota State University and several other institutions developed the scab-risk prediction site. It provides site-specific, computer-generatedmaps to alert farmers when optimal weather conditions make scab development likely.
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