Page 147 - Plant Canada 2024 Proceeding

PLANT CANADA 2024

rhizobacteria (PGPR) which are beneficial to plants. The commercial product Tarantula® (Advanced
Nutrients, Abbotsford, BC), primarily consists of Bacillus species, including B. coagulans, B.
mucilaginous, B. pumilus, B. subtilis, and Paenibacillus polymyxa. This product was used to examine the
effect of these PGPR against Fusarium oxysporum and populations of other microbes in coco coir
growing medium. Previous in vitro experiments successfully demonstrated the antagonism between
Bacillus spp. from the Tarantula® product against F. oxysporum on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium.
In vivo experiments with Cannabis sativa L. (cannabis) plants also showed the efficacy of the biocontrol
agents to significantly suppress F. oxysporum symptoms in rooted plants. To investigate the effect of
Tarantula® when added to growing substrates typically used in cannabis cultivation, experiments were
carried out using two brands of coco coir, Forteco® and Truecoirs LLC. These were subjected to 4
treatments: sterile distilled water, Tarantula®, F. oxysporum, and a combination of Tarantula® and F.
oxysporum. The coco media (3g) was placed into 4 dishes to which 3 mL of each treatment was added
and sealed. The Tarantula® treatment was added 1 week prior to inoculation with F. oxysporum for the
combination treatment. The dishes were shaken daily for better distribution of the treatment. Seven days
-3
post-treatment, 10-fold serial dilutions were done and aliquots of the 10 dilution of each treatment were
spread-plated onto PDA plates with streptomycin (200 mg/mL). After 5 days of incubation, the colonies
developing were counted. The colonies on untreated plates consisted of white, yellow, and pink yeast-like
colonies, Aspergillus sp., and Penicillium sp., while plates inoculated with F. oxysporum yielded a lesser
variety of these colonies and mostly F. oxysporum colonies. The colony forming units (CFU’s) from each
type of coco coir varied in numbers across all treatments. The overall number of colonies of F. oxysporum
and other microbes were significantly reduced in the Tarantula® plus F. oxysporum treatment for both
brands. These findings suggest a broad-spectrum inhibition against all microbes present in coco media.
More studies are ongoing to further investigate the efficacy of Bacillus in growing substrates and the
endophytic colonization of Bacillus spp. in stem tissues of cannabis.

*[O91] GENETIC MAPPING OF RESISTANCE TO FUSARIUM HEAD BLIGHT AND DON
1
ACCUMULATION IN WATKINS LANDRACE WAT.1190580. Sharandeep Dhaliwal , Maria Antonia
1
2
2
3 1
Henriquez , Curt McCartney , Samuel Holden , and Gurcharn Singh Brar . Faculty of Land and Food
Systems, The University of British Columbia, 2357 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z4;
3
2 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 101 Route 100, Morden, MB, R6M 1Y5; and Agriculture/Forestry
Centre, University of Alberta, 9011 116 St NW, Edmonton, AB, Canada, T6G 2P5
Correspondence to: sharan.dhaliwal@ubc.ca

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is an important fungal disease affecting the yield and quality of wheat.
Deploying genetic resistance in wheat is an essential component of an integrated strategy for reducing the
adverse effects of the disease. Most previous studies have mapped FHB resistance from Chinese or
Brazilian germplasm. In a preliminary research 12 Watkins wheat landraces with MR/R resistance to FHB
severity and deoxynivalenol (DON) toxin accumulation were identified. In the present study, we are utilizing
one of the 12 Watkins landraces i.e., Wat.1190580 (origin: Iran) to identify gene(s)/QTL for FHB and DON
resistance. Wat.1190580 has a resistant reaction to FHB and DON accumulation and used as a
male/resistance donor parent to develop recombinant inbred lines (RIL) population: Paragon X
Wat.1190580 (F8, n=75). Paragon is a European cultivar susceptible to FHB. The mapping population was
screened at Morden (2021, 2022, 2023) and Carman (2021, 2022) for FHB infection (Incidence, severity,
Fusarium damaged kernels, and DON) and phenological traits (plant height, days to anthesis). At first,
Paragon X Wat.1190580 was genotyped using a wheat high-density 90K SNP array. Our results from 90K
genotyping resulted in genetic maps with large genetic indicating allelic diversity in landraces not
represented by the 90K SNP array. As 90K is identified as unsuitable for genotyping RILs derived from
Watkins landraces, we genotyped the population using a skim-sequencing approach at 0.1x coverage and
generating genome assembly of Wat.1190580. QTL regions associated with INC (2B, 5A), SEV (2B, 3B,
5B), DON (5A), FDKs (5A) resistance, and PHT (3A, 5A), and DTA (5A) were successfully mapped using
the phenotypic data (field trials) and skim-sequencing data of Paragon X Wat.1190580.

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