. Agri-news. Agriculture. February 9,1998 New crops and new diseases Crop production trends in the prairies have moved to diversification and increased production of exotic herbs, spices, essential oil and medicinal plants. Along with these new crops can come diseases that have rarely, if ever, been seen on the prairies before. 'The plant pathology team at Crop Diversification Centre- South, (CDCS) are discovering new diseases and documenting their incidence on the prairies," says Dr. Kan Fa Chang, plant pathologist with Alberta Agriculture. Food and Rural Development. CDCS Brooks. "
. Agri-news. Agriculture. February 9,1998 New crops and new diseases Crop production trends in the prairies have moved to diversification and increased production of exotic herbs, spices, essential oil and medicinal plants. Along with these new crops can come diseases that have rarely, if ever, been seen on the prairies before. 'The plant pathology team at Crop Diversification Centre- South, (CDCS) are discovering new diseases and documenting their incidence on the prairies," says Dr. Kan Fa Chang, plant pathologist with Alberta Agriculture. Food and Rural Development. CDCS Brooks. "Plant pathologists spend part of their time looking at diseased plants, isolating the pathogens believed to be responsible, then introducing the pathogen to a healthy plant like the one the disease was originally found on in order to prove it is the true cause of the problem. The other part of their time is spent searching for controls, whether chemical, biological or cultural for diseases. The pathology group works with many of the horticultural and specialty crops in the ; New diseases have been found at the CDCS. In August 1996. Chang reported Sclerotica stem rot on a crop called stevia for the first time. Stevia. an annual plant that comes from Paraguay, is used as a low calorie sweetener in South East Asia and South America. It is 100-300 times sweeter than regular sugar (sucrose). The stem rot disease was discovered in the research plots at CDCS and until that time it had not been described on the prairies before. "The second host that the stem rot was found on was purple coneflower (echinacea)." adds Chang. "Echinacea is a perennial herb that is grown as an ornamental and also has uses as a medicinal herb. Once again the disease had not been described before but showed up in the research plots at CDCS in 1996 In the spring of 1997. stem rot occurred in echinacea fields at Vernon BC. Stem rot could impact the production of this crop in both th
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