With wet growing and harvesting conditions in parts of Saskatchewan in 2016, crop diseases were very prevalent.

Barb Zeissman, provincial plant disease specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture, gave an update on plant disease issues during recent regional pulse grower workshops.

"We had root rots that was caused by aphanomyces but we also saw root rots that were caused by other species that cause the root rot complex such as rhizoctonia was detected as well as fusarium species. When we look at foliard diseases that were showing up later in the season we saw a mixed bag of anything."

Ziessman adds as a result, seed quality has become an issue this year. She says farmers should look at their seed and get it tested to determine whether they will need a seed treatment before planting.

"It is the first opportunity we have to insure that our crops get off to a good start so we should be thinking about germination and vigor, impurities. We also need to get that seed tested for disease levels and think about what the levels of disease are and use those to guide our decision whether or not we're going to use that seed or if we should be using a seed treatment."

Ziessman adds disease thresholds vary by crop and disease, for example in chickpeas, tolerance for ascochyta is very low and farmers should treat their seed even at infection levels as low as 0.3 per cent.

The Water Security Agency released their February run off report Thursday, it showed below normal snow pack levels pretty much across Saskatchewan minus the south-east corner.