American plant pathologists have developed yeast that can control fusarium head blight in cereal crops.
David Schisler, a research plant pathologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Peoria, Illinois, said the product could be commercially available in the United States within three years.
“Now that we have a company that has licensed the product, we’re starting down that road of getting the registration,” he said.
Sci Protek of California has acquired the licensing rights to a strain of yeast that protects wheat from fusarium. As an added benefit, the yeast tolerates fungicides commonly used to control the disease.
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“We think this is going to be an incredibly important contribution in future cereal management programs for FHB and the associated my cotoxins that this pathogen produces,” Sci Protek vice-president Nigel Grech said in a statement.
Schisler and Ohio State University plant pathologist Mike Boehm have worked together since 1998 to determine if they could harness the potential of cryptococcus flavescens, a naturally occurring yeast that exists on wheat flowers and heads.
The scientists noticed that plants were protected from fusarium when they developed large populations of the yeast on their heads. It was eventually discovered that the fast growing yeast was able to outcompete fusarium for nutrients on the wheat head, thereby keeping the pathogen under control.
“By happenstance, a head here and a head there was protected by this yeast…. (We’re) taking it into the lab and making large quantities of it so we can put it back out there (in the field),” Schisler said. “It is a very effective competitor for nutrients.”
The yeast, when used alone, reduced fusarium by 30 to 70 percent during 2009 field trials.
However, the scientists discovered they could reduce kernel damage by 85 percent when combining the yeast with prothioconazole, a Bayer CropScience fungicide called Proline. Kernel damage was reduced by only 60 percent when Proline was used by itself.
“We like the idea of being able to tank mix the yeast with the fungicide because that would give us a one-two punch, as far as its ability to ward off the disease,” Schisler said. “There’s a family of fungicides that it has tolerance to, basically the ones that are permitted and registered to be used up through and just after flowering.”
The added benefit of the yeast is it could be used later in the growing season when fungicides can no longer be applied.
“In addition, the product could be used in organic production where fungicides are not a tool or in situations where fungicide use is restricted,” Boehm said in a news release.
The current variant of cryptococcus flavescens is an improvement on a previous strain, which Sci Protek licensed in 2009. The old type must be applied alone because it doesn’t tolerate fungicide.
