Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Summary of minutes of annual meeting:   The meeting was held via WebEx from Montana State University in Bozeman, MT on June 9^th, 2020 and in conjunction with the Western Wheat Workers and took place from 830 am to 1 pm. 

WWW- Wheat Genetics Talks

1.Brittney Brewer-Jones – Ph.D. Student at Montana State University  - Allele Response of Four Yield Component Quantitative Trait Loci to Variable Resource Availability and Competition Levels in Spring Wheat

2. Nikayla Strauss – PhD. Student at Washington State University – The DNAM Population: Understanding the Impact and Potential of the D-Genome in Wheat
3. Joshua Hegarty – Postdoc at UC Davis –  Triticale Grain Quality: It's Not Just For Animals Anymore

WERA-97 Plant Pathology Talks

1. Uta McKelvy – Ph.D. Student at Montana State University - AWaRe: An Online Learning Tool for the Assessment of Wheat Streak Mosaic Risk in the Northern Great Plains
2. Paul Lorenzo – M.S. Student at Montana State University- Methods for Assessing the Effectiveness of the Wsm2 and Cmc4 Genes in Conferring Resistance to Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus and the Wheat Curl Mite

3.Qing Yan – Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology, Montana State University - Regulation of Antibiotic Production by Intracellular Pathways in Plant Beneficial Bacteria

11-12 State reports and WWW and WERA-97 business

12-1230 Discussion of next year’s meeting (MSU Bozeman in person?)

Regional Nurseries Discussion – Kim Garland Campbell

Regional nurseries and cooperative nurseries are focused primarily on agronomics and are run by the USDA.   Also discussed the western regional nurseries run by the USDA.  They are seeking comments on needs and whether they should continue the spring wheat nurseries and what data should be collected.   Craig Morris noted that users need to reply with feedback on quality data or it will be dropped.  Kim Campbell will send out a survey to appraise the situation.  Jen Vonderwell (Agri-Pro) supports the continuation of the nurseries and is particularly interested in the disease data.  Arron Carter commented that timely return of data is a must.  Phil Bruckner is already using the northern nursery.  The nursery data is not always a selection tool as advanced lines are being submitted.  The data is used to enhance characterization of lines.  Kim Campbell commented on data to record level of Aluminum tolerance and wheat streak virus responses.

State Reports

MONTANA:   Jim Berg: reported on wheat acreages and status of wheat acreage in Montana and noted that crop development is behind previous years.  Alan Dyer: Noted that last year stripe rust was down, leafspots and head scab were up.  This year frost injury, Pythium damping off and WSMV are showing increases.  Noticing more loose smut of wheat, and conditions were favorable for Cephalosporium Stripe.  Tim Murray suggested Cephalosporium stripe may be increasing overall due to increasing favorable environmental conditions.

WASHINGTON.  Arron Carton - HRWW down.  Soft white spring wheat up due to prices. Concern for two varieties (Curiosity and UlMagic) susceptibility to stripe rust.   A lot of problems with weather this year. The spring was weird, many weed problems/herbicide mistakes. Xianming Chen - Several years stripe rust was exploiting Clearfield lines.  This year’s stripe ruse was very dynamic and conditions in May may have significant effects on rust.  Kim Garland-Campbell- Washington USDA is advertising a new seed physiologist position and a New Bioinformatics Position.   Tim Murray- In winter wheat,  reports of significant eyespot damage (strawbreaker) and two fields with WSMV associated with early seeding

IDAHO.  Juliet Marshall- Unusual fall conditions with on time planting but planting was followed by cold dry conditions that led to poor wintering of winter wheat and triticale.  Spring wheat acreage is up due to loss of potato and barley contracts.  Good News -No Stripe Rust or dwarf bunt. Dave is retiring.  This spring typified by high winds and wide temperature swings. Recent frost damage.  Has a screening for cereal cyst nematodes. Severe Take-all is occurring in barley (which is atypical).  Expect to see scald, Xanthomonas and foot rot.  Not expecting high yields.  Spring wheat seed sold out.

OREGON.  Duncan Kroese - Fusarium crown rot is significant.  Much of the state is running out of moisture. Cathy Wilson- Lower winter wheat acreage.  Spring wheat acreage is way up especially soft wheat.

AGRIPRO. Jen Vonderwell- Agri-Pro is going forward with hybrid wheat.  Have acquired a falling numbers machine. Has screening panels. Expect to release to soft white winter wheat and AP Illiad Stripe rust resistant, foot rot resistant.

NUTRIEN. Dale Clark- Circles S was bought by Nutrien.  Primarily conducting contract testing. Dale.clark@nutrien.com

Final Note: Alan Dyer- WERA97 will have a later meeting to discuss project renewal.

Accomplishments:

The annual meeting and this project focuses on regional nurseries and discussion of cereal diseases that are regionally important and that can be expected to be of concern to others within the group.   Meeting coordinates samples to be grown  in regional nurseries to screen for disease resistance.   Most important output ultimately is better methods to control cereal diseases.   

Short-term Outcomes: Research focused on diseases of importance to cereal growers and the development of disease resistant varieties.   The group of university and company researchers uses this meeting to develop collaborative research projects and share results. 

Outputs: Outputs include disease control and increased yield of cereals within the growing regions served by the members.   Collaborating members conduct peer reviewed research and contribute to the development of disease resistant cereal varieties.

There were 6 agalerts to over 1000 email and 300 text subscribers on topics of importance to cereal growers in the reporting period and one magazine article in Crop and Soils Magazine, a nationally distributed agriculture publication. There were 18 extension and scientific presentations to an audience of 1048 participants and 10 appearances on Montana Ag Live on Montana PBS to an estimated audience of 20,000 per appearance (2 mil contacts). In media, there was one news release, two facebook videos for Montana PBS, three radio appearances and five YouTube videos featuring cereal crop diseases. One student is expected to defend her PhD thesis on Wheat streak mosaic virus on 3 August, 2020.

Activities: Collaborating on regional nurseries, providing feedback on the disease resistance of varietal entries in the trials and discussing by email and in the annual meeting the relative importance of different cereal diseases and the importance of different methods of control.

Milestones: Preventing disease epidemics that would occur within cereal growing regions due to failure to recognize new pathogens or failure to recommend growers use effective control measures.  

In the reporting period, the Schutter Diagnostic Laboratory at Montana State University processed 190 cereal samples (spring barley, spring wheat, and winter wheat) for plant pests and disorders. Of these there were 100 diseases identified, 23 insects, and 67 abiotic disorders. Wheat streak mosaic virus and the wheat curl mite dominated the disease identifications with 15 and 11 diagnoses, respectively. This information is useful to target research and extension efforts. The AWaRe model (Assessment of Wheat streak mosaic risk) was used to teach growers and consultants about how disease risk can be mitigated.