RESULTS of a 14-year research project on 'silent killer' fungal diseases eating into wheat yields could save the agricultural industry more than $300 million annually.
Prof Richard Oliver, who is leading a team from the Centre for Crop and Disease Management at Curtin University in WA, said wheat breeders had experience in breeding resistance to rust and were good at it but this group of diseases, which included septoria nodorum blotch and yellow spot, were more difficult to tackle.
"These two diseases are quantitatively more important than rust," he said.
"Rust tends to be sporadic but these things are taking an estimated 10, 15 or 20 per cent of yield in wheat belts.
"We have got very clear evidence that these diseases together cost wheat breeders more than $300m in Australia each year, despite fungicide use."
Prof Oliver said research work started in 2000 but the team made its major breakthrough in 2005 when they discovered the genome sequence of the diseases.
He said there were two approaches to this research - the first was pragmatic and based on breeding.
The second, the path his team took, was reductionist, looking to understand how and why the disease works.
"We set out to understand how the pathogens worked," Prof Oliver said.
"One of the things I really like about this program is that is it real blue-sky research transferred into the field very quickly from the genome sequence."
As a direct result of that discovery, and the nine years work since, the team has been able to provide wheat breeders with proteins from the fungus, which they then inject into the plants being tested.
"Under the test, leaves are tested with fungal proteins and within a few days, disease-prone lines can be easily identified and removed from the variety selection process," Prof Oliver said.
"This can allow the accelerating of the breeding progress and eliminate some of the hard work."
Prof Oliver said previously testing of disease-resistant plants were dependent on the season and in replicating results.
"The technology has substantially reduced the time and effort required for screening disease resistance, allowing breeders to focus their efforts on other targets such as drought or frost resistance or improved yield," he said.
"These diseases have a lot of shades of grey and with the proteins we give them the shades of grey turn into steps from black to white."
* Full report in Stock Journal, August 21, 2014 issue.