The potential of cultivar mixtures to reduce fungicide input and mitigate fungicide resistance development
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(2020) 40:36
RESEARCH ARTICLE
The potential of cultivar mixtures to reduce fungicide input and mitigate fungicide resistance development Rose Kristoffersen 1 & Thies Marten Heick 1 & Gudrun Maria Müller 2 & Lars Bonde Eriksen 3 & Ghita Cordsen Nielsen 3 & Lise Nistrup Jørgensen 1 Accepted: 23 August 2020 # INRAE and Springer-Verlag France SAS, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The potential of cultivar mixtures to reduce disease severity and increase yields in cereals across the globe is well established. The effect of cultivar mixtures on the selection for pathogen strains resistant to specific fungicides has, however, not previously been investigated. In this study, the case of the pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici causing Septoria tritici blotch in wheat (Triticum aestivum) and resistance development to azole fungicides by single mutations in CYP51 was explored. Cultivar mixtures composed of a range of resistant and susceptible winter wheat cultivars were grown across a total of seven field trial sites and three growing seasons. The treatments consisted of untreated plots and plots with one, two, or three fungicide applications. From the trials, the economically optimal fungicide input was calculated and the level of fungicide resistance was measured as the frequency of key CYP51 mutations. The study demonstrates for the first time how cultivar mixtures can reduce the selection for fungicide resistance and can reduce the need for fungicide input. Based on four trial sites in two growing seasons, the majority of cultivar mixtures reduced the frequency of a CYP51 mutation compared with the component cultivars in pure stand. The highest significant reduction in mutation frequency by a cultivar mixture was 73%. Conditions with high fungicide input and low disease severity resulted in the most pronounced reductions in mutation frequency by cultivar mixtures. The economical need for using fungicides was also impacted by cultivar mixtures when compared with pure stand. Based on six trial sites across two growing seasons, the majority (67%) of cultivar mixtures had the potential to reduce the number of fungicide applications compared with their pure stand counterparts. These findings could have notable implications for intensive crop production. Within-field diversity can reduce the threat from diseases that have become resistant to fungicides and contribute to creating a more sustainable production where lower chemical inputs can sustain high yields. Keywords Zymoseptoria tritici . Integrated pest management . Crop diversity . CYP51
1 Introduction One of the major threats to crop production is the development of fungicide resistance. An important case is the wheat (Triticum aestivum) pathogen, Zymoseptoria tritici, which causes Septoria tritici blotch (STB) and is distributed
* Lise Nistrup Jørgensen [email protected] 1
Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Forsøgsvej 1, 4200 Slagelse, Denmark
2
Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Institute for Envi
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