Fusarium has been more of an issue for Saskatchewan grain farmers this year than in years past.

Mitchell Japp, Provincial Cereal Specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture, says many crop reporters throughout a widespread area of Saskatchewan have considered downgrading their crop to fusarium.

"It's fairly wide-spread across the province. I think the only region that didn't comment on it on that particular one was the northwest.

We haven't seen a lot of it since because unfortunately there hasn't been a whole lot of harvest progress since then. Primarily though, downgrading was due to fusarium," he said.

Japp says weather conditions and the fusarium pathogen load have been factors in helping it spread.

The Provincial Cereal Specialist also says environmental conditions were right for the disease to spread, as the fusarium pathogen is carried by the wind to susceptible crops.

With crop still left on the field, Japp says farmers should adapt to their current conditions.

"In a normal harvest situation if you have fusarium damaged kernels in the grain, ideally you're moving that through the combine.

The combine isn't moving too fast, and you have the back end of it opened up to move some of the light, chalky kernels out the back end of the combine," he said.

Japp adds seed tests will be very important for the next growing season, and he encourages growers to get those tests done early.