Crop disease monitoring on the Canadian Prairies is a valuable activity, but is often viewed as being less important than laboratory or field-based research. Surveillance of crop health issues provides growers, extension staff, researchers, government agencies, and industry stakeholders with information that enables informed decision making with respect to integrated pest management, setting research/funding priorities, product placement, and pest distribution and severity. It also provides a mechanism for proactive surveillance for new or invasive diseases, while identifying shifts in existing pathogens in relation to virulence and fungicide sensitivity.
Annual crop disease monitoring is done in some provinces such as Saskatchewan (SK) and Manitoba (MB), but not on all crops. Additionally, disease monitoring in Alberta (AB) has been largely project based, and thus has major gaps in historical records for some crops. In addition, the information that is generated is not typically readily available to producers and industry.