FHB Research at Crookston, MN

 Inoculated, misted screening nurseries for spring wheat and barley were grown for the ninth consecutive year at Crookston during the summer of 2003.  During this nine-year course, a variety of inoculation methods and misting regimes have been tested.  The objective throughout has been to facilitate screening of spring wheat and barley breeding lines by providing an environment conducive to development of FHB.

Cold, wet conditions delayed planting in 2003 until mid-May. Barley lines for screening nurseries directed by Drs. Hollingsworth, Smith and Steffenson were planted on April 30, and  Dr. Anderson’s spring wheat FHB screening nursery was planted on May 2 and May 8.  Tilt is used to control diseases other than FHB which may obscure accurate visual FHB scoring in the nurseries.

Installation of the misting system was completed on June 5.  Corn seed was inoculated with FHB isolates as provided by Kent Evans.  The resultant corn seed inoculum was applied at the five-leaf stage to the barley nursery on June 2 and the wheat nursery on June 10.  A second application was made to the barley nursery at the flag leaf stage on June 10-11. Misting was started on June 5 and continued until FHB scoring was started.

Heading notes on both wheat and barley were completed July 3.  Barley plots were scored for FHB on July 14-15. Wheat plots were scored for FHB July 21 and 22. Thirteen pallets of seed from the Crookston nurseries were shipped via truck to St. Paul on August 18. Collaborators and their designates were kept abreast of nursery progress through weekly emails and digital photographs. Summer help was used extensively for setup and maintenance of the misting system, recorders for heading and FHB notes, and for harvest and packing of seed.

FHB infection levels within the screening nursery appear to have been sufficient to allow adequate visual disease rating.  DON and scab levels are expected to be higher than last year due to earlier post-heading infection and rapid disease spread (both severity and incidence) throughout the nursery. Prevalence of FHB in production fields surrounding the screening nursery was lower than expected based on the warm, moist weather post-heading. Fortunately for producers, disease levels remained low. 

This was the first year that positioning of the nursery within the field was based on GPS coordinates.  Consequently, there was substantially less problem with water logging within the nursery.

– Galen Thompson, agronomy research fellow, Dr John Wiersma associate professor of agronomy, Northwest Research and Outreach Center, Crookston