Prevalence of Fusarium species causing head blight of spring wheat, barley and oat in Ontario during 2001–2017

Figures & data

Table 1. Prevalence and severity of Fusarium head blight (FHB) on spring wheat (2001–2017), barley (2005–2017) and oat (2008–2017) in Ontario and number of Fusarium species recovered from infected kernels collected from the surveyed fields.

		No. of fields		FHB			Recovery of Fusarium spp.
Crop	Year	Surveyed	Affected	Incidence (%)	Severity (%)	Index (%)	Kernels (%)	No. species
Spring wheat	2001*	26	26	40.0	57.8	27.0	73.1	6
	2002*	31	29	24.1	30.0	9.7	50.2	4
	2003	28	26	14.3	21.6	3.7	79.3	4
	2004*	28	28	51.1	34.2	20.0	88.2	4
	2005*	26	24	31.9	26.4	9.9	49.2	4
	2006*	27	27	41.2	25.6	11.1	91.1	5
	2007	26	26	9.5	11.2	1.1	67.0	5
	2008*	31	31	27.3	21.0	6.1	77.7	4
	2009*	32	32	27.3	28.3	9.8	81.0	5
	2010*	28	28	37.7	28.2	11.8	64.0	7
	2011	25	25	7.7	8.8	1.6	54.6	4
	2012	22	22	3.5	5.7	0.4	26.4	6
	2013*	40	40	39.2	24.4	13.6	91.6	6
	2014	31	31	14.8	18.2	3.4	62.3	6
	2015*	33	33	27.0	22.5	8.1	73.6	6
	2016	26	26	1.4	1.5	0.02	12.9	6
	2017*	32	32	25.9	20.5	5.3	81.5	5
	Total	492	486
Barley	2005	23	11	11.2	11.5	1.4	27.9	4
	2006	24	10	23.5	8.8	2.2	19.7	5
	2007	22	2	0.8	2.9	0.0	2.0	1
	2008	22	16	12.2	7.2	1.2	34.2	8
	2009	21	21	10.5	11.2	1.8	57.0	9
	2010*	20	20	39.0	20.0	9.1	45.3	9
	2011	13	12	3.0	2.5	0.1	47.4	7
	2012	21	19	1.5	2.1	0.0	25.6	5
	2013*	27	27	41.7	16.1	8.6	74.3	5
	2014	29	29	22.9	11.7	4.3	52.7	6
	2015*	35	35	39.7	20.1	11.2	50.8	6
	2016	30	30	1.9	3.0	0.1	42.7	6
	2017	33	33	27.0	9.6	2.6	68.5	6
	Total	320	265
Oat	2008	11	11	-	-	-	17.2	5
	2009	10	10	-	-	-	33.7	6
	2010	15	15	11.3	10.3	1.3	25.0	8
	2011	12	12	2.3	3.1	0.1	66.5	5
	2012	15	15	1.7	4.5	0.1	30.0	5
	2013	19	19	14.3	7.0	2.5	42.1	6
	2014	22	22	11.5	10.1	2.7	40.4	6
	2015	21	21	8.5	4.4	0.4	42.0	5
	2016	23	23	5.2	4.5	0.3	20.0	7
	2017	29	28	5.2	4.2	0.2	25.3	7
	Total	177	176

* FHB epidemic year.

Table 2. Fusarium species recovered from infected kernels of wheat, barley and oat collected from surveyed fields in Ontario during 2001–2017.

	% affected field			% affected kernels			% total Fusarium
Fusarium species	Wheat	Barley	Oat	Wheat	Barley	Oat	Wheat	Barley	Oat
F. graminearum	88.2	64.4	44.9	60.4	17.0	3.8	89.9	40.1	10.9
F. sporotrichioides	19.4	41.6	44.3	1.9	3.7	3.1	2.9	8.7	8.9
F. poae	18.9	76.8	93.1	1.6	17.6	23.5	2.4	41.7	68.3
F. avenaceum	14.1	28.3	29.9	2.0	1.7	2.4	3.0	4.0	7.0
F. equiseti	10.7	30.0	29.6	0.8	1.8	1.2	1.3	4.2	3.4
F. acuminatum	2.8	7.8	3.0	0.1	0.4	0.2	0.2	0.9	0.4
F. culmorum	1.0	0.4	3.0	0.1	0.0	0.2	0.2	0.02	0.5
F. crookwellense	0.9	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.0	0.0
F. oxysporum	0.4	2.2	3.2	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.03	0.2	0.3
F. solani	0.0	0.4	0.7	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.02	0.3
F. tricinctum	0.0	0.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.04	0.0
F. verticillioides	0.0	0.8	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.2	0.0
Non-infected (%)				32.9	57.6	65.4
Total no. fields or kernels	486	265	176	24 300	13 250	8800

Fig. 1 Frequency of the five most common Fusarium spp. isolated from putatively infected kernels collected from commercial fields of spring wheat (2001–2017), barley (2005–2017) and oat (2008–2017) in Ontario. *FHB epidemic year.

Fig. 2 Comparative frequencies of the five most common Fusarium spp. isolated from putatively infected kernels of wheat and barley in Fusarium head blight (FHB) non-epidemic and FHB epidemic years in Ontario during 2001–2017.

Fig. 3 The difference in daily temperature, precipitation and number of rain days (>1.0 mm day⁻¹) in June and July between Fusarium head blight (FHB) non-epidemic and FHB epidemic years in Ontario during 2001–2017. Data were collected by Environment Canada weather stations in Guelph, Peterborough, Toronto, Kemptville and Ottawa.