LSU AgCenter researchers looking to combination of resistant varieties, new fungicides to help combat diseases.
LSU AgCenter plant pathologists and wheat breeders are looking for new wheat varieties with greater resistance to Fusarium head blight or scab and for new fungicides that could help growers combat the disease.
Since Fusarium became a major pest three years ago, Louisiana’s wheat acreage has dropped precipitously, declining to 16,000 acres in 2016-17, the lowest level for the spring-harvested cros in decades.
Paul P. “Trey” Price, plant pathologist at the LSU AgCenter’s Tom Scott Research and Extension Center, talked about those efforts and other approaches to controlling the problem during the LSU AgCenter’s Wheat and Oat Field Day in Winnsboro, La.