November 18, 2013

Sclerotinia disease hit Western Australia's rapeseed crop

Due to a rot disease called sclerotinia, some rapeseed growers in Western Australia have lost half their yields this harvest.

A warm damp finish to the grain growing season created perfect conditions for sclerotinia to affect rapeseed crops right across the state.

Plant pathologist Ravjit Khangura says disease this season is the worst she's seen.

"Normally we would expect that we can lose yield of 0.3 to 0.5 of a tonne in the worst affected crops, but one tonne yield loss is huge, really enormous yield loss. I have never seen such severe levels of sclerotinia in Western Australia before."