Jan./Feb. 1998
U of M Hosts National
Scab Forum in St. Paul
By Tracy Sayler
Library
Home
E-Mail
Back
Prairie Grains is the
official publication of
the Minnesota
Association of
Wheat Growers,
North Dakota Grain
Growers Association,
South Dakota Wheat,
Inc., and the
Minnesota Barley
Growers Association.
industry participated in a National Fusarium Head Blight (scab) Forum held last fall in St. Paul, Minn.
Scientists, including plant pathologists, agronomists, molecular biologists, and plant breeders, who attended the meeting shared research results and reinforced cooperative efforts to control the disease damage.
The opening address was given by Barnesville, Minn., producer Tom Anderson, chair of the Small Grains Research and Communications Committee, which serves in an advisory capacity to the Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council.
Anderson noted that the industry has been successful in getting scab discussed and prioritized at a national level.
"By getting scab as a program topic at the National Association of Wheat Growers Convention last January, through briefings, letters, testimony, and visits to federal officials in Washington D.C., to the visit by USDA Under Secretary Miley Gonzalez to the Northern Red River Valley during the 1997 harvest for a first-person inspection of the scab problem, we have indeed been successful in billboarding this problem by working together, as growers, millers, brewers, bakers, and researchers," said Anderson.
Scab research programs initiated at state levels are already being boosted by the U.S. government. The Agricultural Research Service allocated $200,000 in FY97 funds to fight the scab problem, and $1 million in FY98 funding- $500,000 at the cereal rust lab here in St. Paul and $500,000 to a 12-state consortium, which began to gel last March when University officials got together in a meeting to propose a federal research plan and establish national research priorities. The consortium hopes to make further inroads in securing additional federal funding for scab.
Anderson said that while growers realize that the "fruits of research take time," he also reminded crop scientists and research administrators that the grower who has suffered through the scab problem four to five years in a row is running out of time. "From a grower's perspective, I want to impress upon you how many wheat and barley farms depend upon the work of the people (at this scab forum)," said Anderson. "I hope that five years from now, the only reason I would have to attend another scab forum is to brag about the grain I harvested from the scab-resistant varieties and research work that came about in part from this meeting."
Among the topics discussed at the forum: field and greenhouse techniques used in scab research; the genetics and breeding of wheat and barley lines for better scab resistance; a discussion of cultural, chemical, and biological means for scab control; molecular and biotechnological approaches to varietal resistance and scab pathogen control; and prioritization and coordination of ongoing and new research programs.
About 20 principal investigators are involved with fusarium head blight research at the University of Minnesota, according to Ruth Dill-Macky, University of Minnesota plant pathologist, one of the organizers of the Forum. Breeding varieties for better scab resistance is a top priority. Wheat lines are screened for scab resistance at three scab nurseries in Minnesota: the St. Paul ag experiment station, the West Central Experiment Station in Morris, and the Northwest Experiment Station in Crookston. Different germplasm is being used, including Asian sources of resistance.
The scab research effort is funded by the Minnesota Scab Initiative, and through the state's wheat checkoff administered by the Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council.
Grains Magazine January 1998