Meeting on FHB Identification and Germplasm Enhancement Held in Jianyang, Fujian

A Meeting on Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) Identification and Germplasm Enhancement was held on April 22, 2014 in Jianyang, Fujian Province. It was hosted by the Institute of Crop Sciences of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (ICS-CAAS) and organized by Nanping Institute of Agricultural Sciences. More than 40 participants attended the meeting, including experts from Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), CAAS, ICS, as well as wheat breeding experts from the agricultural academies of 11 provinces and cities in the middle and downstream Yangtze River, Huang-Huai River Basin, southwest and northeast areas.

Mr. Jia Jizeng, Research Fellow of ICS led the delegates to the FHB identification station where innovative disease-resistant germplasm with excellent agronomic traits and new anti-disease sources unlike Sumai No. 3 selected from a group of domestic and international wheat germplasm were demonstrated. Participants also observed carefully the identification nursery of domestic new wheat varieties. Interested in these disease-resistant germplasm, they hope to strengthen cooperation in the future and actively promote anti-disease wheat breeding. 

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a major disease threatening food security and food safety inChina. With shorter cycle of incidence and increased degree of harm, it has aroused close attention of the general public and the government. An effective measure is to cultivate disease-resistant varieties based on scab source development. After lively discussions, participants agreed that anti-scab breeding is a worldwide problem. Along with the northward move of the disease, the production areas south of the Yellow River and north of the Huaihe River become more affected. Currently, the situation is very grim that the main varieties are highly prone to FHB. However, the rich disease-resistance resources and experienced wheat breeding team lay a better research base, while wheat genomics research creates the conditions for anti-scab gene discovery and genome-wide selective breeding.

Participants called for a collaborative research group and research projects on wheat scab resistance gene discovery and breeding and the technical system and development platform for the research. Jianyang is recognized as a rare natural base for scab identification. Jianyang Agricultural Science Institute has been committed to the disease identification for decades, so a national station is expected to build on this.