Award details

Protecting yield potential of wheat

Reference	BBS/E/C/00005203
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Kim Hammond-Kosack
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Rothamsted Research
Department	Rothamsted Research Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	3,129,549
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2012
End date	31/03/2017
Duration	59 months

Abstract

Biotic stresses lower crop productivity. In the UK, when the wheat crop is infected by pathogens, the ensuing diseases reduce grain yield and quality, and sometimes compromise grain safety. Also, when wheat crops experience biotic stress the plants fail to use all the fertilizer applied and these residues may cause environmental pollution. In this project following careful consideration, only two fungal pathogens of the highest importance to European agriculture and the UK economy will be studied. The diseases caused are Septoria tritici blotch (STB) and Fusarium ear blight (FEB, also known as head scab disease). Fusarium infections contaminate the grain with several trichothecene mycotoxins and often making the harvest unsafe for human food, animal feed and fermentation. Strict legislation is now in place to minimise these mycotoxin risks. In this project we will determine the mechanisms which permit successful Septoria and Fusarium infections and disease formation. We envisage a cornerstone to these studies will be the exploration of detailed infection time courses in wheat leaves and specific floral tissues by next generation RNA sequencing. To investigate fungal gene function we will deploy forward and reverse genetic techniques that we have optimised for both pathogens. In addition, a virus vector system will be developed and refined for the transient over-expression of small fungal proteins and for virus induced gene silencing of candidate wheat gene sequences of interest.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Crop Science, Microbial Food Safety, Microbiology, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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