University of Guelph researchers growing varieties of wheat more resistant to disease

A team of University of Guelph researchers is trying to make wheat more resistant to a potentially devastating disease.

The team is growing varieties of wheat at the Ontario Crops Research Centre that may be able to resist Fusarium Head Blight disease (FHB).

FHB is a serious fungal disease that can affect kernel development and even contaminate grain with a fungal toxin that can negatively impact livestock feed, baking and milling quality, biofuel production and malting and brewing qualities.

"If the fungus pathogen gets into the crop, then it basically damages the grain and produces mycotoxins that's harmful to both livestock and humans. And since most of the wheat is going either for flour, production or feed, we need to keep that mycotoxin out of the grain,” Helen Booker, Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph said.

Booker said the kind of higher temperatures and heavier rainfall seen in Southern Ontario are ideal conditions for the disease. She's been cross breeding different varieties of wheat, spraying them with the spores of the disease and testing, to try to create something more resilient that also provides a good yield.

“It's highly unlikely that there would be something that was completely resistant. It's a trait that's quantitative in nature. You don't get complete resistance or a complete susceptibility. You have something in between,” Booker said.

Booker's work has led to three varieties of Canada Eastern Soft Red Winter Wheat: OAC Constellation, OAC Moon and OAC Virgo, now available on the market. However, they're trying to grow something even more resilient.

“They're not any worse than the susceptible, moderately susceptible check. So that basically is a minimum standard, but we need to make further improvements and that's why we're still out here,” Booker said.

The researchers also breed for resistance to other foliar diseases and are always working to create stronger varieties.

In order to help farmers identify a problem, Riley McConachie, a master’s student at the University of Guelph, is working to create an app that uses images of the wheat, either taken on the ground or from a drone. Artificial intelligence is used to detect the disease in the crop.

“You take a picture with your phone from overhead, and the model will find every wheat head within the image,” McConachie said.

The detection app is not currently available to the public, but researchers hope to have it available soon.

“Next step for us is to be deploying our work in the field for producers to use so they can evaluate their fields so that they can minimize the impact of the disease once it's present,” McConachie said.