SpotCheck
The SpotCheck service will not be available for the 2023/24 season. Thank you for your interest in the SpotCheck Service. If you need further product advice, please contact your local technical manager.
Launched in 2017, our free SpotCheck service in collaboration with ADAS provides growers and agronomists with a conclusive diagnosis of disease prevalence in oilseed rape crops, with a particular focus on light leaf spot, which is a notoriously difficult disease to identify.
Light leaf spot is an airborne polycyclic disease. It is capable of several infection cycles a season and this is what makes it so hard to control, because the fungus repeatedly releases spores which infect new growth.
When samples are received by ADAS, they are incubated at room temperature for 2 – 3 days, to encourage the light leaf spot symptoms to express on the leaf surface. Each of the leaves is then individually inspected and assessed for light leaf spot, Phoma, powdery mildew and downy mildew. If the leaf is suspected to be displaying disease symptoms it is then inspected again under a hand lens or microscope.
The assessment findings are then emailed back within 7 working days, allowing for decisions to be made based on the results.