Evaluation of approved fungicides for the control of seed-borne common bunt in wheat as alternatives to banned seed treatments
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Moukahel, A. S. G. Kumari and I. Darwish. 2025. Evaluation of approved fungicides for the control of seed-borne common bunt in wheat as alternatives to banned seed treatments. In: Abstracts book of 14th Arab Congress of Plant Protection, Algiers, Algeria, 3-7 November 2025. S. G. Kumari, K. Makkouk, H. Boureghda, M. Biche, A. Moukahel, N. Asaad, B. Khenfous-Djebari and S. Morsli (eds. ). Arab Journal of Plant Protection, 43(Special issue): E67-68 (English) https://doi.org/10.22268/AJPP-043.S.E010152; A84-A85 (Arabic) https://doi.org/10.22268/AJPP-43.S.A012188
Abstract
Seed-borne fungal diseases are among the most important and harmful diseases, especially when using untreated or inadequately treated seeds. Seed treatment with fungicides is one of the best strategies for controlling seedborne fungal diseases, and is considered as environmentally safe and economical due to applying low doses of fungicides compared to foliar applications. Recently, many fungicides used as seed-dressers have been banned (e.g. thiram) or restricted in some countries due to their high risk to human, animal or environmental health, which calls for the search for new alternative fungicides to maintain global seed trade and seed exchange for research purposes. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of four registered fungicides in controlling the causal agent of common bunt of wheat (Tilletia sp.), namely: Celest Extra® (25 g/l fludioxonil + 25 g/l difenoconazole) at a concentration of 2 ml/kg seeds, Switch® (250 g/kg trifloxystrobin + 500 g/kg tebuconazole) at 0.3 g/kg seeds, Nativo® (cyprodinil 37.5% + fludioxonil 25.0%), and Myclobutanil® (Myclobutanil 22.37%) at 1.0 g/kg seeds, using two bread wheat varieties (Cham 10 and Terbol) and two durum wheat varieties (Margherita and Zagharin-2). The experiment was conducted at ICARDA’s Seed Health Laboratory in Lebanon under fully controlled conditions. employing a randomized complete block design (RCBD), by contaminating the seeds of the tested wheat varieties with common bunt teliospores at rate of 1 g spores/50 g seeds, then the inoculated seeds were air-dried for around 4 hours. The contaminated seeds were treated with the tested fungicides at the recommended dose. On the other hand, contaminated and untreated seeds were left as controls. Healthy seeds were also treated with fungicides to evaluate the fungicides effect on the wheat varieties and their seed germination. At maturity, the incidence of common bunt was calculated by counting the infected and healthy spikes in each treatment, and the results were then analyzed using ANOVA. The results obtained showed highly significant differences between fungicides and wheat varieties on infection rate, where Celest Extra® had the lowest infection rate of 3.5%, followed by Switch® with an infection rate of 7.8%. Whereas, Nativo® revealed moderate efficacy on the disease (20.4%), and Myclobutanil was the least effective with an infection rate of 52.3%, however, its effect was significantly better than the untreated control (79.1%). Physiologically, no abnormal symptoms appeared and none of the tested fungicides affected seed germination at the recommended doses. Accordingly, research on Celest Extra® and Switch® could be expanded in the future using different concentrations and targeting various fungal diseases, to verify their effectiveness on different crops in controlling seed-borne diseases.
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Moukahel, Abdulrahman https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4297-771X
Kumari, Safaa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4492-6257
Kumari, Safaa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4492-6257