New Wheat Disease Notification Tool Offered To Producers This Season

By Kay Ledbetter

Multiple wheat viral pathogens affect wheat grown in the Texas High Plains and cause devastating losses to wheat production, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Research experts.


 

A new Wheat Disease Detection web-based system is available to alert producers to virus outbreaks in the High Plains.

This year, however, a system has been developed to give producers a “heads up” on advancing disease outbreaks and advice on management, according to Dr. Charlie Rush,AgriLife Research plant pathologist in Amarillo, and senior research associate Jacob Price.

The devastating diseases wheat producers could face each year include those caused by the mite-transmitted viruses of wheat streak mosaic virus, triticum mosaic virus and wheat mosaic virus or High Plains virus, and barley yellow dwarf virus, which is transmitted by aphids, Rush said.

“In many cases, the diseases caused by these pathogens look very similar to drought stress or nutrient deficiency, therefore they are not identified until costly irrigation and fertilizer applications have been applied,” he said.

Until recently, no system has existed to alert producers to the detection of these wheat viruses during the growing season or to the onset of disease epidemics throughout the Texas Panhandle, Price said.



Multiple wheat viral pathogens cause devastating losses to wheat production in the High Plains.

But in the past year, the AgriLife Research plant pathology program in Amarillo has developed a “Wheat Virus Early Detection System” to alert AgriLife Extension agents, crop consultants and producers to disease identification throughout the High Plains, he said.The system will provide results of pathogens detected during testing at the Plant Disease Clinic at the Amarillo center.

“When wheat viral diseases are first identified within individual counties, an alert email will be sent to members on the wheat virus email list,” Price said. “Included in the alert will be a website link that will contain information on counties and dates where the viral diseases have been identified, diagnostics and visual identification information, and management options.”