Autumn 2025 update: Crown Canker and Upper Canopy blackleg ratings.

The autumn 2025 edition of the 'Blackleg management guide provides updated information to help growers and advisers manage canola crops to reduce blackleg infection.

The fact sheet also has information to help identify high-risk situations where practices need to change to reduce or prevent yield loss.

Blackleg is a disease of canola that causes severe yield loss, but it can be managed successfully.

Is this a year of crown canker or UCI?

In most seasons crops will not be prone to both crown canker and upper canopy infection (UCI). Early sown crops that also germinate early, grow quickly avoiding seedling infection and therefore will also avoid crown canker (plant growth prior to winter may avoid blackleg infection). However, these early sown crops may start flowering early in mid-to-late winter when blackleg is still active. Flowering during winter is critical for UCI to occur.

Key points

• Never sow your canola crop into last year’s canola stubble.
• Choose a cultivar with adequate blackleg resistance for your region.
• Relying only on fungicides to control blackleg poses a high risk of fungicide resistance.
• If your monitoring has identified yield loss is occurring, follow the steps in this guide to manage blackleg.
• By monitoring your crops at maturity you can determine if you need to change your blackleg management in future years.

This guide is produced in collaboration with Marcroft Pathology and as part of the National Variety Trials program. Use this fact sheet in conjunction with the BlacklegCM app and the UCI BlacklegCM - Blackleg upper canopy infection management app.

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