Exploring the resilience of wheat crops grown in short rotations through minimising the build-up of an important soil-borne fungal pathogen.

ABSTRACT: Given the increasing demand for wheat which is forecast, cropping of wheat in short rotations will likely remain a common practice. However, in temperate wheat growing regions the soil-borne fungal pathogen Gaeumannomyces tritici becomes a major constraint on productivity. In cultivar rotation field experiments on the Rothamsted Farm (Hertfordshire, UK) we demonstrated a substantial reduction in take-all disease and grain yield increases of up to 2.4 tonnes/ha when a low take-all inoculum building wheat cultivar was grown in the first year of wheat cropping. Phenotyping of 71 modern elite wheat cultivars for the take-all inoculum build-up trait across six diverse trial sites identified a few cultivars which exhibited a consistent lowering of take-all inoculum build-up. However, there was a

SUBMITTER: McMillan VE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6015077 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature