Ratoon Stunting Disease (RSD) is a highly infectious disease which causes stunting and average yield losses of about 15-20 percent.
No variety is RSD resistant and yield losses are higher where there is moisture stress.
However, it can be effectively managed:
- Growing break crops in fallow land
Volunteer-free fallow periods help break pest and disease cycles.
- Acquire approved seed
Approved seed should be used as often as possible and planted into fallow ground.
- Utilise your local productivity services
Obtain material from your local productivity service from approved seed plots or purchase tissue culture.
- Keep machinery clean – Farm Hygiene
Cane knives, harvesters, plant cutters, planters, stool splitters and general farm equipment should be sterilised when entering a farm.
- Use the industry’s RSD diagnostics service
If you are planning on sampling your cane crop, contact your productivity service who in most districts will organise a plant source inspection and include a separate RSD test.
District Productivity Services can sample both xylem and leaf sheath bioassay (LSB) samples and know how to avoid or limit contamination. The samples are sent to SRA’s IRIS laboratories in Brisbane.
The RSD lab is open all year with a peak period from March to July. More than 1,000 samples can arrive per week at the lab during the busiest period and about 12,000 samples a year are processed from across the industry.
More than 78 percent of these are delivered by Productivity Services personnel from farm plant source inspections and approved seed plots. The remaining samples are received from SRA’s plant breeding program.
SRA provides an affordable RSD service to assist the industry to obtain clean planting material.
Samples are triple tested, and every aspect is optimised to avoid human error, including the use of robots. The average turnaround time is about three days, from when the samples are received for testing to the day results are returned, unless greater scrutiny of a sample is required necessitating re-testing. The price for xylem and LSB samples is only $2.50 and $6.00, ex GST, respectively.
As RSD is not uniformly distributed in a block, diagnostics should only be used as a quality control for routine RSD management practices. A negative RSD test result does not guarantee the crop is free of disease.
- New technology is on the way
SRA is examining a sterilisation unit to simplify the job of cleaning harvesters between farms. Current tests are underway to ensure that the system meets the project’s objectives.
SRA’s Delivery of a pest and disease diagnostic step change for the sugarcane industry project is also progressing. This project is investigating the use of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) on processed cane as an automated method to assess RSD status in every rake of cane entering the mill.
The anticipated outcome of this project will be that growers will receive the RSD status of each rake with their cane payment information, and will be able to make informed decisions about RSD management based on the data.
More information
SRA has RSD management information for growers to limit the disease spread and mitigate economic impacts on their farms.
Northern and southern booklets are available, describing the nature of the pathogen, transmission, management and economic effects.
Download a copy by visiting the Ratoon Stunting Disease page.
