In Italy, as in the rest of the world, wheat is present in everyone’s lives because of its dietary versatility, especially with regard to bread, pasta, cakes and industrial derivatives, which make this cereal indispensable to our daily lives, which is why it is necessary to protect this cereal from possible diseases.
However, this cereal, needs painstaking care to enable farmers to meet the high demand for this product.
Among the most common diseases, for wheat, we can indicate:
- Septoriosis
- ear fusarium
- yellow rust
- brown rust
Recent years have also seen the appearance of black rust, which has been uncommon in recent years but may be making a comeback.
How to fight wheat diseases
There are several diseases for cereals, and according to their occurrence it is appropriate to cope with pathogens that could compromise the wheat crop, and cereal crops in general.
Vernal autumn cereals require a prevention program that addresses septoria, fusarium and rusts, requiring treatment at the “end of the upraised stage,” indicatively between the first and second decades of April.
Fusarium, on the other hand, requires a prevention plan called “anthesis initiation phase,” to be carried out indicatively around the first days of May.
Flowering, moreover, may be omitted only when fusarium infection does not pose a potential danger.
Fungi, on the other hand, must be combated in a different way, where the quantity, and quality of fungicides and pesticides must be chosen with great care so as not to see the farmer’s investment thwarted.
Therefore, “treated” plants, including through herbicide bar treatments, and these treatments tended to be carried out during the first phase of the crop cycle.
Last but not least, there is treatment at the end of the lifting stage that prevent septoria and early attacks of brown rust. In these cases, herbicidal traits are useless for Septoria as they would be too early.
The last treatment option is at the spiked stage, where the plant needs to be protected from Fusariasis. Here, however, activity with fungals, treated with weed bars, is recommended through specific products.
