Improving disease management in Canadian wheat by identifying Fusarium genotype trends

Wheat is an important grain for many food products around the world and Canada produces around 35 million tonnes of wheat annually. The fungal disease Fusarium head blight can be a threat for wheat growers and end-use manufacturers because of its detrimental effects on grain yield, quality and safety. To help better understand the disease and its impacts on crops in Canada, we examined over 7,700 wheat samples from 2014 to 2020 through our Harvest Sample Program for Fusarium species in Canada and the presence of mycotoxins like deoxynivalenol (DON).

In Canada, Fusarium head blight has been the most detrimental pathogen to wheat production and quality over the past 3 decades. Our survey provided substantive data on the occurrence and frequency of Fusarium across Canada between 2014 and 2020, specifically in western Canada. It helped us identify trends, which are important to help producers, plant breeders and agronomists understand the disease and implement disease management strategies to control it.

Disease and mycotoxin pressures can change each year depending on a variety of situations, like weather, growing conditions, wheat varieties grown and strains of the disease. We demonstrated relationships between Fusarium species based on the:

• sample year
• sample location
• wheat species
• severity of Fusarium damaged kernels
• accumulation of DON

Through the survey, we found that F. graminearum was the predominant Fusarium species, with between 75% and 94% of Fusarium damaged kernels each year having that species present. The Fusarium species did vary by province, with Alberta having the highest occurrence of different species and Manitoba having the lowest occurrence of different species and highest presence of F. graminearum. We also found that while Fusarium damaged kernels with F. graminearum had the most concentrated accumulations of DON, on average the concentration was manageable.

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Our data from this survey will help the Canadian agriculture sector implement management strategies to help control this disease, which will help improve food safety and end-use functionality of Canadian wheat for buyers around the world.

Full research article

Janice Bamforth, Tiffany Chin, Tehreem Ashfaq, Niradha Withana Gamage, Kerri Pleskach, Sheryl A. Tittlemier, Maria Antonia Henriquez, Shimosh Kurera, Sung-Jong Lee, Bhaktiben Patel, Tom Grafenhan, and Sean Walkowiak. 2023. A survey of Fusarium species and ADON genotype on Canadian wheat grain. Frontiers in Fungal Biology. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffunb.2022.1062444