Background/context:

Fusarium pathogens cause two important wheat diseases: crown rot costs more than $56million a year, and head blight is a serious human and animal health concern for the grains industry. The two diseases have overlapping aetiology, epidemiology and host resistance but this has not been exploited to improve host resistance or other management options. Links between pathogen populations causing the two diseases in wheat farming systems are currently missing.

 Aim:

This work aimed to use aggressiveness, relative abundance, toxin production, source, dispersal and effectiveness of inoculum, epidemiology and disease severity to acquire new knowledge on Fusarium pathogens causing head blight and crown rot diseases and apply this to select and improve host resistance for use in breeding and a variety of development programs.

Major Outcomes:

Significant new knowledge of pathogen population structure, distribution and interrelationships among Fusarium species causing crown rot and head blight have been generated from field surveys and targeted studies. Reproducible and quantitative bioassays have been developed for both diseases and used to identify new sources of crown rot resistance. The high throughput crown rot bioassay was used to screen more than 1500 wheat germplasm to select 17 lines with putative resistance. These are being field tested at the CSIRO Gatton nursery. The net benefits of the outcomes from this research have been calculated at around $6 million over a 10-year period – a 9-fold return on the Centre’s investment in this project.

For more information contact:

Dr Sukumar Chakraborty
CSIRO Plant Industry
Phone: +61 (0)7 3214 2677
Email: Sukumar.Chakraborty@csiro.au