What is karnal bunt in wheat and will it affect my MSP sale?

I had a mild karnal bunt problem in a sprinkler field. After I shifted those plots back to flood irrigation around earing time and stopped using my own saved seed, it came down a lot. The humid mist from sprinklers at flowering really feeds this disease.

Before you take the lot to the mandi, get a handful checked and clean it well, because graders look at the share of affected grains. A lightly affected lot sometimes passes within tolerance after good cleaning and removal of the worst grains, but do confirm the limit at your centre first so you are not turned away at the gate.

Do not keep affected wheat as next year's seed, that is how it carries forward. I learned this the hard way. Always switch to certified treated seed of a tolerant variety for your zone if your field has shown the black smelly grains even once.

From my side in Karnal, the spray timing matters if your area has a history, a recommended fungicide right around ear emergence in a humid year reduced the affected grains for me, following the label. On a dry year I skip it. Scout the crop at flowering and decide rather than spraying every season.

One point nobody told me early on, the disease loves the cool humid weather at flowering, so my plots near the trees and the low damp corner always showed more than the open windy parts. Now I keep the spacing open and avoid heavy late nitrogen there so the canopy is not so damp at earing.