SaskOilseeds pits swathing against straight cutting to see which – if either – practice is more inclined
Reporter
July 2, 2026
4 min read
Parts of Manitoba had their worst year ever for verticillium stripe last year. So did other areas of the Prairies.
Despite the 12 years that have transpired since it was first found near Winnipeg in 2014 then, farmers and researchers still do not know a whole lot about the soil-borne canola disease and how it spreads.
However, they do know it’s extremely destructive, reducing yields, affecting seed quality and contributing to longer-term disease pressure within a field, and it’s spreading west from Manitoba fast.
That’s why SaskOilseeds is rolling out an on-farm trial to determine if harvest strategies such as swathing and straight-cutting affect the incidence and severity of verticillium in canola.
WHY IT MATTERS
Researchers are working to better understand verticillium infection in canola. Manitoba has been ground zero for the pathogen.
The Verticillium Harvest Management Protocol is one of eight on-farm research trials (branded Top Notch Farming Trials) being held by the commission in co-operation with SaskBarley, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers and SaskWheat.
Most of the research is suggested by farmers — who host the trials on their farms — and agronomists looking for answers to a range of questions, says Kaeley Kindrachuk, agronomy extension specialist with SaskOilseeds.
However, it works both ways.
“Sometimes we’ll have ideas and then we’ll run it past farmers and agronomists that are participating and they’ll say yes or no,” she says.
Kindrachuk says there has been no published research on the impacts of swathing or straight cutting on verticillium, but it’s a topic being hashed over in agronomic circles.
“There’s not a whole lot that we can do to manage verticillium stripe right now,” she says.
“We’re just seeing if there’s something there. And then by having (University of Manitoba researcher) Harmeet (Chawla) analyze everything for us, I think that we’ll have a little bit more data and we’ll be able to hopefully come to some better conclusions over the course of this trial.”
If the research does not yield new guidance for growers, it might confirm what some have been saying about the connections between swathing, straight cutting and verticillium.
“There are no registered fungicides or seed treatments for verticillium stripe, and cultural practices such as swathing versus straight cutting have not consistently reduced soil inoculum,” read a Feb. 8, 2026, Western Producer article.
Even worse, straight cutting has been linked to spread of the disease. Kindrachuk is aware of this.
“This is why this type of trial started. We’ll be measuring verticillium stripe spore load in the soil as one of our data collection points to see if there are differences in straight combining or swathing.”
Agronomists do most of the work
Participating farmers are not expected to follow the trial through by themselves, she says. Agronomists will play a large role in setting up plots on participants’ farms and collecting data. Farmers will be using their own equipment.
“We try to make these trials … as easy as we possibly can for the grower,” she says.
“The agronomists are really the ones doing that heavy lifting.”
The project will become marginally more time-consuming for farmers at harvest.
“We harvest each one of the plots separately and then take a sample from that. Harvest takes a little bit more time, but for the rest of the growing season, it’s fairly easy for the grower.”
Otherwise, agronomists or trial managers will complete a series of tasks, such as taking a soil nutrient sample in the spring or fall, soil samples to measure verticillium inoculum, a fall stem sampling test a week after harvest or after swathing, disease assessments at 70 per cent seed colour change and harvest grain samples for each plot.
There are only two qualifications for producer participation, says Kindrachuk: they need to be in good standing with the commission and have verticillium stripe in their fields confirmed by SaskOilseeds.
The latter is not set in stone, however.
“If they’re interested but they haven’t had (verticillium) confirmed, we can still take some samples this spring and send it over to the lab for that confirmation.”
Although SaskOilseeds would like to see participation from canola growers across Saskatchewan, Kindrachuk says producers from the province’s southeast are particularly needed, given the region’s concentration of verticillium stripe.
For more information, visit saskoilseeds.com or email Kindrachuk at kkindrachuk@saskoilseeds.com. — With files from Don Norman