24 | Advancing Seed in Alberta This data consists of nearly 130,000 hourly weather observations that Alberta Climate Information Services collects every day from over 370 stations provincewide. “We think it’s a great use of the data that the weather stations are collecting,” says Kennedy. The disease severity is calculated on a Manitoba FHB risk assessment model that’s based on air temperature, relative humidity and rainfall over the previous seven days. The Alberta tool is active between June 1 and August 15 each summer, the time when a wheat crop is most susceptible to FHB infection and corresponding losses, both in terms of yield and quality. The tool, which is designed to be viewed on mobile devices, can be found at agriculture.alberta.ca/acis/fusarium-risk-tool.jsp. The website also includes best management practices for controlling fusarium head blight. To access the FHB risk gauge, users click on a red pin in the top left corner which opens up a map of Alberta with all of the weather stations marked with a green dot. They can then zoom in and click on the green dot closest to their field, which then brings up the risk gauge for that location. “A farmer can look at the weather station closest to their field and keep an eye on that, and when they see that it is high risk and their crop is in the floret stage when it’s liable to be infected, then they can make a decision on whether or not to apply a fungicide,” says Kennedy. Turkington says for some producers, “having this additional piece of information provides some peace of mind.” Screen shot images from the fusarium head blight risk assessment tool. Images courtesy of the Alberta Wheat Commission. “A farmer can look at the weather station closest to their field and keep an eye on that, and when they see that it is high risk and their crop is in the floret stage when it’s liable to be infected, then they can make a decision on whether or not to apply a fungicide.” — Brian Kennedy