Improving the Commercial Value of Anti-Fusarium Probiotics in Corn and Wheat By Rapid Breeding

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There is an opportunity for Western Canadian farmers to export more wheat, and for Eastern Canadian farmers to sell more corn. One of the challenges are grain diseases caused by the fungal pathogen family, Fusarium graminearum sensu scricto (Fgss) which causes $50-$300 million in losses annually to Canadian farmers. Fgss decreases yield, but worse, secrete dangerous toxins into the grain. Fgss outbreaks are worsening, perhaps due to climate change. The current fungicides and best crop genetics, together, do not fully control the disease during severe outbreaks. One promising solution is to stack a third solution: probiotics. Just as humans benefit from probiotics, so can crops. Adding anti-Fgss probiotics (biocontrol agents) to fungicide sprays could completely suppress these diseases, as they have complementary modes of action. A probiotic that can replace 50% of the fungicide, but be delivered together as a late-season-spray to save tractor/fuel costs, would pay for itself. We have 6 safe, promising, late-season bacterial probiotics from wheat/corn that combat Fg, three of which have already shown efficacy in initial field trials. They are unique, because they are pre-adapted to the corn/wheat tissues through which Fgss spreads. To move forward, the private sector has told us that probiotics must be very potent, consistent across environments, tolerate complex fungicide formulations and be patentable. We have developed novel breeding strategies (FieldAdapt, Enhanced seek-and-kill) to evolve the probiotics to overcome these challenges.