Researchers Work Hard on FHB

SASKATOON - Feb 13/04 - SNS -- Canadian researchers are stepping up efforts to unravel the complexities of Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) in hopes they will soon offer growers resistant varieties and other tools to help control the plant disease, says the Western Grains Research Foundation.

The organization says in the past decade the disease has risen from obscurity to cause losses of over $1 billion in Canada, while growers have no major control options other than using fungicides registered only for emergency use.

The scientists working to find solutions to this disease share farmers' sense of urgency, says Dr. André Comeau, a cereal germplasm development researcher at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Ste-Foy, Quebec. While the task of identifying FHB resistance and breeding it into varieties of acceptable quality has proven immensely challenging, genetic detective work by a handful of researchers across the country is uncovering new knowledge that promises to speed up solutions for this perplexing crop disease.

In particular, researchers are ramping-up their work toward "decoding" the complex mechanisms of FHB resistance, says Comeau. "For example, the diverse types of FHB resistance genes interact with environmental factors according to precise rules. Once those rules are understood, we can improve our selection methods, draw more useful conclusions, and get results faster."

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