Reaction of selected winter wheat cultivars from Europe and United States to Karnal bunt

A study was conducted to determine the susceptibility of popular United States (U.S.) and European winter wheat cultivars to the fungal pathogen Tilletia indica. Historically, the disease has been limited to autumn-sown spring-habit wheat areas and not associated with winter wheat. In 1997, Karnal bunt was observed on winter wheat in limited regions of Texas. This region marks the southern end of the contiguous U.S. central winter wheat belt, which extends north into Canada. The aim of this study was to assess the levels of disease resistance in winter wheat. Fifty U.S. and European winter wheat cultivars were tested using two different greenhouse inoculation procedures. For each cultivar, 12 spikes in boot were inoculated by boot-injection with a sporidial suspension (1.0 ml/boot, 10,000 spores ml−1), and 12 other emerged spikes were spray-inoculated with the same concentration. The experiment was repeated for three seasons. Among cultivars, mean seed infection ranged from 2.1 to 87.2% and 0 to 15.6% for boot-injected and spray-inoculated treatments, respectively. Results showed that the majority of winter wheat cultivars tested were susceptible to Karnal bunt.