THE USE OF IN VITRO AREA UNDER DISEASE PROGRESS CURVE TO PREDICT QUANTITATIVE TRAITS IN THE FUSARIUM HEAD BLIGHT-SMALL GRAIN CEREAL PATHOSYSTEM

Abstract

Small grain cereals worldwide are seriously affected by Fusarium head blight (FHB) infection originated by various Fusarium pathogens. Traditional screening for disease reaction performed at the flowering period in the whole plant in the growth chamber and filed has been accompanied by a number of challenges. In vitro screenings allowing for simple, effective, and trustworthy indication of FHB response at the mature plant phase were undertaken to overcome the limitations of classical screening. Area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) is a useful in vitro quantitative measurement to quantify disease progress over time in several pathosystems. AUDPC criterion has been used in recent research successfully predicting aggressiveness and quantitative resistance in FHB-small grain cereal pathosystem including four FHB species and several widely cultivated Syrian wheat and barley cultivars. However, no overall study involving all experimental data was conducted to distinguish pathogenic levels in a set of 16 FHB isolates and susceptibility to disease infection of eight cereal cultivars. The applied method allowed to easily and effectively predicting the response of plants infected in the adult stage of development. The effectiveness of AUDPC lies in determining the species composition of the pathogen and determining the aggressiveness of various isolates of species of fungi of the genus Fusarium In addition, using AUDPC in the laboratory, it is possible to conduct a pre-sowing assessment of seed material for the susceptibility or resistance to the most common isolates of Fusarium in the region. Cultivar resistance screening identified Arabi Aswad and Bohoth10 as agronomically favorable and potential participants in theSyria's cereal breeding programs as donors of FHB resistance.