Performance Story: Phenotyping Fusarium Head Blight for Genetic Enhancement of Wheat
Dr. Anita Brûlé-Babel, University of Manitoba
Fusarium head blight (FHB) is the number one priority disease of wheat in Canada. It threatens all wheat growing areas by reducing crop yield, compromising end-use quality, and affecting food and feed safety through accumulation of mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol (DON) in the grain. Fusarium graminearum is the primary causal agent of FHB in Canada. The incidence of F. graminearum in grain has increased across western Canada, especially over the last seven years, and poses a threat to the entire wheat value chain. Management of FHB requires use of multiple strategies, as no single method provides complete control of FHB. Use of resistant cultivars is a critical component of an integrated FHB management system. In order to continue to make progress in breeding for FHB resistance and build on the momentum that has been generated, it is critical to provide increased capacity for FHB phenotyping.
Breeding lines from all spring, durum and winter wheat breeders in western Canada were evaluated for FHB incidence, severity and index in inoculated field nurseries in Carman and Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2019 and 2020. These lines were also evaluated for Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK) and dexonynivalenol (DON) content. A series of checks with known reactions to FHB were used to compare the reactions of test lines and ensure that disease pressure in the nursery was adequate to detect differences. During this project term, a total of 22,039 and 20,863 plots were evaluated for FHB reaction in the field in 2019 and 2020, respectively. In both years, harvested samples were tested for FDK and DON content data.
Overall, levels of disease in the spring and durum wheat nursery were high and good separation of the checks showed that the nursery was able to detect differences in resistance to FHB among the lines tested in both years of testing. Disease levels in the winter cereals nurseries varied more between location and year due to varying field conditions at the time of inoculation. However, differentiation between field reactions was possible. In general, the nurseries were very successful and provided breeders and researchers with valuable data to advance breeding for resistance to FHB.