4 GERMINATION.CA JANUARY 2019 THOMAS MIEDANER DOESN’T wear a top hat or wave a magic wand, or even consider himself a magician. The scientist from Hohenheim University in Germany spe- cializes in cereals and fusarium, including resistance genetics in rye, triticale and wheat, and using molecular markers to bolster resistance to fusarium head blight. It’s using these molecular markers that gives breeders new ways to speed up the breeding process and help them get closer to conquering the ravages of fusarium in cereals. Miedaner and his team are working on an experimental approach that allows them to predict which lines of wheat will be resistant to fusarium head blight based on their genetics — a bit like pulling a rabbit out of the proverbial hat. “Genomic selection makes FHB resist- ance selection more efficient, because larger populations can be screened in a shorter period,” Miedaner says. “This is a trick that should accelerate breeding in the lab.” Fusarium head blight is of major con- cern in the European Union and around the globe due to strict regulations on mycotoxin in cereals grown for human consumption, and for good reason. Throughout history, mycotoxins have caused a host of problems for human beings, including outbreaks of illness and death. Technology has allowed humans to effectively identify fusarium and keep it out of the food system, especially in developing countries — but the pathogen still causes problems that endanger human health and the pocketbooks of growers. Tackling fusarium with technology was the focus of the 9th Canadian Workshop on Fusarium Head Blight held in Winnipeg Nov. 19-22, 2018. Chairing the workshop was Tom Gräfenhan, research scientist at the Canadian Grain Commission. “We’ve been blessed with two years of great conditions, dry weather, low dis- ease pressure on the Prairies. That kept fusarium at bay, so the problem wasn’t as prominent as the 2016 epidemic that we saw,” says Gräfenhan, referring to the year that FHB infections hit a record high on the Prairies. “Because of technological change in general, our tools have opened up new possibilities of collaboration and approaches to scientific questions we haven’t answered previously.” It was the first time the fusarium workshop was held in conjunction with the Canadian Wheat Symposium, mark- ing its fourth event this year. Chairing that event was Tom Fetch, cereal stem rust researcher at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. What excites the fusarium com- munity also excites the wheat community — and vice versa. “Fusarium particularly has been a prob- lem in our wheat worldwide, so it really works together in a symbiotic way to hold these two conferences together. When it comes to fusarium, wheat producers are the ones who’ve probably suffered the most,” Fetch says. That hardship is getting support from the international community and people like Miedaner and his European counter- part Hermann Bürstmayr, researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. Bürstmayr delivered the opening plenary talk on Nov. 19 on knowledge-based resistance improvement of wheat against fusarium head blight. “You can’t just breed for high resist- ance and forget about quality, for instance, because this will not be accepted by the market. So, you have to think of things always in a package, in a combined overall variety. So, what can we do with genetics? We can basically try to make the plant itself better suited to our conditions — no need to add extra resources. It’s a very efficient way to increase resource For the first time, the Canadian Workshop on Fusarium Head Blight and Canadian Wheat Symposium were held jointly to help advance research and yield new insights. Marc Zienkiewicz Hermann Bürstmayr MEETINGOFTHEMINDS Thomas Miedaner, German plant scientist. “YOUCAN’TJUSTBREED FORHIGHRESISTANCE ANDFORGETABOUT QUALITY.” –HermannBürstmayr