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The germination problem of oat seed lots affected by Fusarium head blight

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Abstract

Mycotoxin contamination and reduced germination capacity (GC) of oats affected by Fusarium head blight (FHB) have become serious concerns in Norway. Spawn- and spray-inoculated field trials were conducted from 2007 to 2010 to screen for resistant genotypes and to study the relationship between GC and deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination. Correlation coefficients between GC and DON level varied from −0.412 to −0.711 (P < 0.001). The strongest and the weakest correlations were recorded for the spray- and spawn-inoculated experiments of 2009, respectively. High DON levels were associated with low GCs but low DON levels did not guarantee higher GCs. DON did not inhibit initiation of germination, but did retard seedling growth in a germination assay conducted on DON-amended water agar. Most of the seedlings grown on the modified WA containing even as little as 2 ppm DON had abnormal morphology and would not be considered as ‘germinated’ in official tests. A greenhouse experiment studying the effect of time of inoculation on GC, DON level, and seed infection (SI) showed a rapid reduction in DON levels resulting from later inoculations. Increments in GC were observed although they were not as strong as the decrements in DON level. Seed infection remained consistently high (> 60 %) for all inoculations. Seed dressing and dehulling individually were not effective in improving GC, but when combined increased GC to the percentage of kernels having viable germ. We hypothesize that in addition to the level of DON, SI influences the GC of Fusarium-damaged oats, especially in wet years that may facilitate late-initiated infections.

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Abbreviations

DON:

Deoxynivalenol

FHB:

Fusarium head blight

GC:

Germination capacity

SI:

Seed infection

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Norwegian Research Council and the Norwegian breeding company Graminor AS to the projects ‘Safe Grains: Mycotoxin prevention through resistant wheat and oats (Project number 178273)’ and ‘Mycotoxin contamination in Norwegian food and feed: Modeling reductive approaches and risk assessment with regards to the whole food chain (Project number 19412)’. We also would like to thank our senior technician Yalew Tarkegne for his help during inoculum preparation and conducting the field experiments and Dr. Yanhong Dong (University of Minnesota) for toxin analyses. The comments and suggestions made by the anonymous reviewers are highly appreciated.

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  1. Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432, Ås, Norway

    Selamawit Tekle, Helge Skinnes & Åsmund Bjørnstad

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  1. Selamawit Tekle
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Correspondence to Selamawit Tekle.

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Tekle, S., Skinnes, H. & Bjørnstad, Å. The germination problem of oat seed lots affected by Fusarium head blight. Eur J Plant Pathol 135, 147–158 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-012-0074-6

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