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Improved control of Septoria tritici blotch in durum wheat using cultivar mixtures

View ORCID ProfileS. Ben M’Barek, View ORCID ProfileP. Karisto, W. Abdedayem, M. Laribi, M. Fakhfakh, H. Kouki, A. Mikaberidze, A. Yahyaoui
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/664078
S. Ben M’Barek
1Regional Field Crops Research Center of Beja (CRRGC) BP 350, 9000 Beja, Tunisia
5CRP Wheat Septoria Precision Phenotyping Platform, Tunis, Tunisia
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  • ORCID record for S. Ben M’Barek
  • For correspondence: sarrah_bm@msn.com
P. Karisto
2Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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W. Abdedayem
3University of Carthage, National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia (INAT), Tunis, Tunisia
5CRP Wheat Septoria Precision Phenotyping Platform, Tunis, Tunisia
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M. Laribi
3University of Carthage, National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia (INAT), Tunis, Tunisia
5CRP Wheat Septoria Precision Phenotyping Platform, Tunis, Tunisia
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M. Fakhfakh
4Comptoir Multiservices Agricoles, 82, Avenue Louis Brailles, Tunis Belvedre, Tunis, Tunisia
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H. Kouki
5CRP Wheat Septoria Precision Phenotyping Platform, Tunis, Tunisia
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A. Mikaberidze
6School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, UK
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A. Yahyaoui
5CRP Wheat Septoria Precision Phenotyping Platform, Tunis, Tunisia
7International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) km. 45 Carretera México-Veracruz El Batan, Texcoco, Estado de México, CP 56130
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Abstract

Mixtures of cultivars with contrasting levels of resistance can suppress infectious diseases in wheat, as demonstrated in numerous field experiments. Most studies focused on airborne pathogens in bread wheat, while splash-dispersed pathogens have received less attention, and no studies have been conducted in durum wheat. We conducted a two-year field experiment in Tunisia, to evaluate the performance of cultivar mixtures with varying proportions of resistance (0–100%) in controlling the polycyclic, splash-dispersed disease Septoria tritici blotch (STB) in durum wheat. To measure STB severity, we used a high-throughput method based on digital image analysis of 3074 infected leaves collected from 42 and 40 experimental plots during the first and second years, respectively. This allowed us to quantify pathogen reproduction on wheat leaves and to acquire a large dataset that exceeds previous studies with respect to accuracy and precision. Our analyses show that introducing only 25% of a disease-resistant cultivar into a pure stand of a susceptible cultivar provides a substantial reduction of almost 50% in disease severity compared to the susceptible pure stand. However, comprising the resistant component of two cultivars instead of one did not further improve disease control, contrary to predictions of epidemiological theory. Susceptible cultivars can be agronomically superior to resistant cultivars or be better accepted by growers for other reasons. Hence, if mixtures with only a moderate proportion of the resistant cultivar provide a similar degree of disease control as resistant pure stands, as our analysis indicates, such mixtures are more likely to be accepted by growers.

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Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • ↵a Joint first authors

  • ↵b joint last authors

  • We revised the main text, adding some references and removing unnecessary ones. We improved readability of all figures. We added references to the dataset in Dryad digital repository.

  • https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.r2280gbb5

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted July 07, 2020.
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Improved control of Septoria tritici blotch in durum wheat using cultivar mixtures
S. Ben M’Barek, P. Karisto, W. Abdedayem, M. Laribi, M. Fakhfakh, H. Kouki, A. Mikaberidze, A. Yahyaoui
bioRxiv 664078; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/664078
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Improved control of Septoria tritici blotch in durum wheat using cultivar mixtures
S. Ben M’Barek, P. Karisto, W. Abdedayem, M. Laribi, M. Fakhfakh, H. Kouki, A. Mikaberidze, A. Yahyaoui
bioRxiv 664078; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/664078

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