Fusarium Pseudograminearum - Management

Management

The most common management practice for controlling Fusarium crown rot on wheat is to use resistant varieties. While no fully resistant variety exists, resistance in the form of tolerance to the disease can be used. A few of the resistant wheat varieties include: 2-49, Sunco, Kukri, Brundage, Gene, Weatherford, Madson, Temple, and Tubbs. Tolerance still allows the host to become infected by the pathogen, but it provides the host with the ability to withstand the infection and produce an acceptable yield.

Agronomic practices can be used to reduce the severity of Fusarium crown rot on wheat, but they cannot eliminate the disease. Practices which can help reduce the risk of disease are: not rotating wheat with oats, tilling fields after harvest to improve water infiltration, establishing a dust and stubble mulch in the spring, applying the correct amount of nitrogen to fields, and plant wheat at an intermediate planting date which balances the larger plants and greater stress of early planting with the lower yields of later planting. These practices work to reduce disease by creating an unfavorable environment for the pathogen or by making the host less susceptible. Since these practices don’t necessarily line up with preferred agronomic and economic considerations, the use of resistant or tolerant varieties is becoming the accepted management practice.