Effect of fungicide combinations for FHB control on disease incidence, grain yield and quality of winter wheat, spring wheat and barley

This study investigates the effects of timing of fungicide applications alone or in combinations on Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), seed deoxynivalenol (DON) concentrations, dominant leaf diseases, grain yield, and thousand kernel weight (TKW) in winter wheat, spring wheat, and barley in the Atlantic region of Canada. The experiments were conducted for three years (2010-2012) with fungicide treatment as the main factor. Selected commercially available fungicide treatments were applied at two timings: 1) ZGS 39: check; propiconazole/trifloxystrobin (125 g ha-1); propiconazole (125 g ha-1); and pyraclostrobin (100 g ha-1) and 2) ZGS 60: check; prothioconazole (200 g ha-1); prothioconazole/tebuconazole (200 g ha-1); and metaconazole (90 g ha-1). Results show that a single fungicide application was not sufficient to achieve a high yield with good seed quality. Reduction of visual FHB infection due to fungicide applications did not guarantee a reduction in seed DON concentrations. Fungicide application pyraclostrobin @ ZGS39 + prothioconazole/tebuconazole @ ZGS60 was the best treatment consistently providing the highest crop yield and seed quality, including lowered DON.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author