Low-Cost Spore Traps: An Efficient Tool to Manage Fusarium Head Blight through Improved Cropping Systems

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a devastating disease of wheat. Worldwide, graminearum the most dominant FHB-causing species. Its common toxin, deoxynivalenol (DON), impairs food and feed safety has an enormous economic impact. Agronomic factors such as crop rotation, soil management host genotype strongly influence occurrence F. graminearum. Infected plant debris from previous crops, on which perithecia ascospores develop, represent main source for FHB, hence, improved cropping systems aim to reduce this inoculum decrease infection risk. The best measure evaluate pressure spore traps that detect deposited airborne ascospores. Commercial are expensive require power sources, thus, they not suitable investigations in field experiments with different treatments. In consequence, we developed containing Petri dish Fusarium-selective agar, protected by aluminum dishes attached wooden board. We compared data our low-cost trap those commercial high-throughput jet sampler obtained equivalent results. compare systems, observed high correlation between DON content wheat grains number colonies spores. Our proved be highly valuable tool only study FHB epidemiology but also identify innovative lower risk contamination.