On June 3, U.S. federal prosecutors accused two Chinese researchers of smuggling samples of the fungus Fusarium graminearum into the U.S., describing it as a potential agricultural terrorism weapon.

Yunqing Jian, 33, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology has been chargedin connection with allegations that she helped her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, 34, smuggle the pathogen into the U.S.

‘Pretty ineffective’ weapon

However, agriculture experts interviewed by Reuters this week said the fungus has been in the U.S. for more than a century, can be prevented by spraying pesticides, and is only dangerous if ingested regularly and in large quantities.

“As a weapon, it would be a pretty ineffective one,” said Jessica Rutkoski, a crop sciences professor, wheat breeder and geneticist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rutkoski and other researchers said extensive testing for the fungus’ toxin, widespread use of fungicides and the difficulty of intentionally creating an infection with the pathogen would make it a clumsy weapon. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI declined Reuters’ request for comment.

Since the 1900s, U.S. farmers have been battling the fungus, which causes Fusarium head blight, usually known as “scab,” which often infects wheat, barley and other grains on farms during rainy years. The telltale pink streaks on the grain heads contain a toxic byproduct called vomitoxin, which is tested for and tightly controlled by grain elevators where farmers sell their crops.

Constant testing and monitoring means that only negligible amounts of vomitoxin ever make it into the bread, pasta and cookies Americans eat, far below levels that would sicken a human, experts said.

Farmers have history with fusarium

“We have a long history of managing epidemics of scab,” said Andrew Friskop, professor and plant pathologist at North Dakota State University, noting that farmers have access to many tools to prevent and control the disease. Farmers began regularly spraying their fields with fungicide as early as the 1990s, and researchers have since developed multiple strains of fungus-resistant wheat.

Plant experts said that it would be difficult to fully assess the risks posed by the samples without more information on the particular strain. But Rutkoski, whose research involves intentionally contaminating wheat with the fungus, said that she isn’t always successful at infecting her test field’s wheat with scab. She said the pathogen is difficult to control, and her lab has to strike the right balance of temperature and humidity to create an infection.

In federal court in Detroit on Tuesday, Jian was charged with conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the U.S., smuggling goods into the U.S., false statements and visa fraud. Jian did not comment on the charges, and the lawyer who represented her in court was not immediately available for comment. Liu could not be immediately reached for comment.

The court scheduled Jian’s bail hearing for June 13.

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The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday identified the pathogen as Fusarium graminearum, a fungus it said was classified in scientific literature as a potential agroterrorism weapon. In a statement it said that the fungus causes “head blight” in some crops and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses globally each year.

Why it matters: Fusarium head blight hurts yields and crop quality, causing billions of dollars of damage globally each year

According to an FBI criminal complaint, Zunyong Liu, 34, a researcher currently in China, brought the fungus into the United States while visiting his girlfriend, Yunqing Jian, 33, in July 2024.

He admitted to smuggling in the fungus so he could conduct research on it at a University of Michigan laboratory where his girlfriend worked, according to the complaint.

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the complaint, an examination of electronic communications between the two indicated that they discussed shipping biological materials and research being done in the laboratory prior to Liu’s arrival.

Jian and Liu were accused in the complaint of conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United States, false statements and visa fraud.

Cheyvoryea Gibson, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, said the pair’s actions “posed an imminent threat to public safety.”

Jian was expected to appear in court in Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday. A judge appointed a public defender, who could not be immediately reached for comment, to represent Jian.

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But that also means disease of all kinds — including cereal leaf diseases — are coming out to play. And now is the time to get them, said a plant pathologist.

“For disease this is our peak season. That’s when fungicide decisions are made,” said Randy Kutcher with the University of Saskatchewan. The big cereal leaf diseases in the province tend to be tan spot in wheat and durum and net blotch in barley, he said. Durum has also attracted some septoria in the past as well as bacterial leaf streak, particularly among seed growers under irrigation. Cereal crops are usually sprayed for leaf diseases at the fully-unfurled flag leaf stage. However, most crops in Saskatchewan have already passed that benchmark, said Kutcher.

The good news is that many (if not most) cereal producers today use one fungicide pass to take out fusarium head blight (FHB) at flowering and hope that it will also have some impact on leaf diseases. Kutcher recommended that practice.

“I see there’s lots of spray tracks in some of the fields,” he said. “I would think a lot of that is for fusarium head blight, but that application of fungicide will also help to mitigate the leaf diseases to some effect. Generally we like to hit the leaf diseases a little earlier.”

When that flowering takes place, of course, depends on when growers seeded. Due to the cool, wet spring interfering with seeding in some cases, that timing may vary, said Kutcher. Regardless, it’s just nice to have moisture, he said. “We’ve had quite a number of dry years. so I think everybody’s pretty happy. We’ve had a bit of replenishment of moisture in the soil and pretty good growing conditions.”

Watch this space for more coverage of cereal leaf diseases on the Prairies.

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The digital mapping tool is designed to give area-specific insights into the fungal disease. Cereal producers can get a localized head blight index and risk level for fusarium-damaged kernels and deoxynivalenol based on weather conditions.

The tool, online at prairiefhb.ca, can be used on smart phones, tablets and desktop computers.

It’s the result of a three-year research project led by the University of Manitoba’s Paul Bullock. Agriculture departments and commodity groups throughout Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta collaborated on the project.

The study chose 15 locations, five from each Prairie province. It created 600 plot sites at each location for each of the three years, for a total of 1,800 data points.

Weather data comes from more than 500 stations run by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Manitoba AgWeather Program, Saskatchewan Public Safety, Alberta Climate Information System and data company Metos Canada.

“We had a weather station right on site to tell us what the weather parameters were and we were able to use that information to develop the models, the thresholds, for when the disease occurred,” said Timi Ojo, crop production manager with Manitoba Agriculture, who initiated the project.

The developers validated their models in field conditions across 300 random locations in the Prairies. Results had over 80 per cent accuracy.

There’s no such thing as a totally accurate model, Ojo noted, but the results are far more reliable than the old risk maps, which this project is designed to replace. Previously, the ag department relied on U.S.-derived algorithms.

“Those were around 58 per cent accuracy,” said Ojo.

They were also based on spring wheat, while the new project includes nuances for winter wheat, barley and durum.

The team also extrapolated data from the 500-plus weather stations to derive averages in surrounding areas.

The tool gives fusarium risk by province, crop type and variety, and includes a choice of the three disease categories. Linked resources include crop reports from all three Prairie provinces.

The addition of fusarium-damaged kernels (FDK) is another innovation, Ojo noted. Quality downgrades due to FDK have cost producers a lot of money in the past, he noted.

“The tool has both financial and environmental benefits, since the need to apply fungicide for disease control at a given location also varies from one extreme to the other,” the Manitoba Crop Alliance said in a May 15 release.

Gaps

The 2019-21 research period encompassed three dry years on the Prairies, so fungal pressure was low and provided unrepresentative data for those trying to build a reliable model.

“To develop a model, we need to have a specific amount of disease occurrence,” said Ojo.

There are some greyed-out metrics in the tool as a result. For example, users will not be able to capture FDK measurements for any crop except durum, but there was enough disease pressure in spring wheat to develop a fusarium head blight index.

The second phase of the project is expected to fill in those blanks. Lessons learned may also result in similar tools for other crop diseases.

“We are not looking at other fungal diseases yet, but there’s nothing stopping us from looking at it in the future,” said Ojo.

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The report by the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC), in collaboration with the Manitoba Crop Alliance, says new Canadian malting barley varieties can be grown successfully in Manitoba.

With yields and quality comparable to the check variety — AAC Synergy — the study found new varieties including AAC Connect, CDC Fraser, CDC Copper, CDC Churchill and AAC Prairie are the next generation of varieties for Manitoba growers, the CMBTC said in a release Friday.

“The study showed that these new varieties offer good agronomics and the high end-use quality traits that are the hallmark of Canadian malting barley,” CMBTC managing director Peter Watts said.

According to the Manitoba Crop Alliance, total barley acres, whether for feed or malting, have declined over the last two decades on “a combination of disease concerns, market forces and difficulty to meet malting grade.”

That said, seeded acreage reports from Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp., the provincial crop insurance agency, have found Manitoba barley acres steadied in the years 2020 to 2023, at a level between 365,000 and 400,000.

Producers in Manitoba have struggled with diseases such as fusarium head blight in malting barley, but with improved disease resistance packages, better fungicide products and improved management practices, fusarium has not been a significant issue in recent years, CMBTC said.

Producers growing malting barley varieties have the option of both malting and feed markets. With a malt barley variety, farmers gain an additional 2.5 million-tonne market that they could not access with feed varieties, the centre said. As well, malt barley generally offers a premium of around $1 per bushel or more.

“Manitoba is one of the best barley producing regions in the world,” Manitoba Crop Alliance CEO Pam de Rocquigny said in the same release. “This success can be attributed to climate and geography, and our advanced farming practices.”

Barley is a good cereals crop option, as it provides many benefits when included in crop rotations. It can be planted early in the growing season and is both competitive and high yielding. Furthermore, including barley in crop rotations can provide flexibility during harvest, as it matures early, allowing harvest to be spread out between crop types, the centre said.

“In combination, these attributes make barley a great option for farmers,” says de Rocquigny.

Registrations of new malting barley varieties for producer use in Canada in recent years led to the need to evaluate those new varieties in field-scale trials, under Manitoba growing conditions, to provide data for that province’s growers on how new varieties could fit in their cropping systems.

More details from the CMBTC study can be viewed on the Manitoba Crop Alliance website.

Several companies in Manitoba source malting barley to supply domestic and international markets including CMBTC members Cargill, Richardson, Viterra, Malteurop and Boortmalt, among others.

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“Even though wheat samples tested had the presence of fusarium, infection levels were relatively low,” it said, adding rates were higher “in regions with high corn acreage, irrigated acres and regions with higher moisture conditions during flowering.”

Fusarium infection levels were “relatively low” for all cereals. The testing was initially supported by government funding but the cost is now covered by Alberta Seed Processors.

Its report can be found in the News and Events section of seedprocessors.ca.

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“Certainly the rain that we’ve had would get things going,” said Kelly Turkington, a plant pathologist at Agriculture Canada’s Lacombe research station.

For example, leaf spot diseases in barley and wheat can quickly flare up, he said on July 13.

“Within a week, it can start producing spores and infect the lower leaves and if the moisture continues, it’ll move up the canopy.”

Leaf spot diseases and fusarium head blight can cause late development, affecting grain filling, plumpness and bushel weight, especially in barley. However, the impact isn’t as dramatic when crops are further advanced, and other factors — the specific variety being grown, the farm’s area and the amount of rainfall — also affect severity.

However, some growers may want to reduce the risk by spraying an older, cheaper product that includes protection from fusarium head blight on the label, keeping in mind the pre-harvest intervals, said Turkington.

Checking the latest crop reports can also provide valuable information.

“We’ve been monitoring the rust situation like we do every year. I’m part of the Prairie Crop Disease Monitoring Network and we issue a weekly rust forecast,” he said. (It can be found at prairiecropdisease.blogspot.com)

“We look at rust development in the United States — so stripe rust in Washington State, Oregon, northwest Idaho and then that corridor from Texas to Nebraska.”

Since there is a drought stretching from Texas to Nebraska, there has been little disease development. Washington State did not have a lot of stripe rust development either, but in the first half of July there was an increase in rust reports in that state.

“That means there are spores available to be blown into Western Canada,” said Turkington. “The key risk areas are southern Alberta, central Alberta and western Saskatchewan.”

Rust spores can reach into the Peace region.

“It is a bit challenging this year, because with the moisture coming later, we’re getting towards the key time,” he said. “So, we might have some late development, not only in the leaf spot, but if you look at sclerotia and sclerotinia, they need about three weeks of soil moisture close to field capacity.”

If it’s been dry and then rains soak the field to capacity, spores could be released in about three weeks, he said.

“What it might mean, in this year, is that the main crop of spores will come into that canola crop as it is moving into full bloom or even later crop growth stages,” he said.

However, decisions on whether to spray can be challenging.

Turkington recommended looking at the weather forecast over the coming two weeks. If one week is dry and the next is wet, it could have an impact.

“If you could tell what your next two to three weeks would be like as far as weather, that could tell you if you could spray now and you could provide some protection during the next two to three weeks, when there might be some infection that could not cause huge yield losses, but in that five to 10 per cent range, plus reductions in kernel weight and bushel weight,” he said.

Wheat and barley cereal heads can be infected with fusarium head blight or fusarium graminearum in the boot to late milk/early dough stage to senescence, he said.

The kernels can look healthy, but there can be superficial infection and production of deoxynivalenol (DON).

“I would have a close look at the crop and what’s happening in the crop,” he said.

Sclerotinia and fusarium head blight are diseases where producers have to make the decision to spray before they see symptoms.

“You have to rely on weather maps and other tools that might assess inoculum levels, in the case of sclerotinia, whether it is a spornado, spore map or petal testing,” said Turkington. “In contrast, with your leaf spot diseases, you can follow a disease in the crop and use that as a guide in terms of risk.”

He recommends looking for disease while scouting for weeds. Disease serves as an indicator that the crop needs to be monitored more closely. If there is no leaf spot disease in the upper and middle canopy, spraying may not be useful, he said.

But if disease is developing in the lower canopy and moving up, and if there is cooler weather with more rain, disease may cycle in the crop.

“It may be worthwhile to spray a fungicide to provide some protection to that upper canopy tissue,” he said.

Most products give a two-week window of protection, which can keep the disease under control while the crop grows.

“If you aren’t seeing symptoms in your crop and you continue to see no symptoms, our experience in what we see in commercial fields is that it’s likely not going to pay to spray a fungicide,” said Turkington.

This doesn’t apply to fusarium head blight. Growers need to look at risk maps, previous history with the disease and the pathogen in the presence of harvested grain, he said. If the history is there, it may be beneficial to spray.

Turkington has also seen bacterial leaf disease lately, more commonly over the past two to three years in southern Alberta. The disease pops up in fields that have seen significant thunderstorms. It causes long greasy stripes on the leaf. There is no cure, other than being cautious about seed sources, and extending rotations, he said.

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But it’s still lurking, and increasingly that’s happening in parts of the province that have been spared in the past.

“This year, just over five per cent of samples that we’re testing from Alberta have been positive for fusarium graminearum,” said Trevor Blois, disease diagnostician at 20/20 Seed Labs.

“In all the counties where we have historically seen fusarium graminearum — which is almost every county in Alberta at this point — we’re still seeing it in the occasional sample, but a really low percentage of samples are testing positive, and the samples that do test positive are usually a pretty low average per cent of infection.”

That’s a “pretty big decrease” from the fusarium levels of the last two years, he said.

“Last year, 15.8 per cent of samples tested positive, and in 2019, we hit a peak with almost 20 per cent of samples testing positive,” he said. “This year is close to what we saw in 2017 and 2018, which were both around that five per cent mark.”

Like other crop diseases, fusarium head blight is closely tied to the environment, so it’s not a surprise that levels dropped during such a dry year.

“The majority of diseases flourish in really wet conditions, so when it’s really dry, disease isn’t as much of an issue. There’s a pretty close correlation,” said Blois. “Last summer was pretty dry, so that had a huge impact on disease levels, of course.”

But despite the lower levels in 2021, Blois saw a slight shift in the geographical distribution of fusarium head blight.

“Prior to 2016, southern Alberta was really the hot spot,” he said. “That was where we first saw fusarium graminearum showing up in the province. But since then, the rest of the province has caught up and the distribution is broader.

“The last few years, east of Edmonton has been the area where we’ve been seeing the most positive samples, especially along the Saskatchewan border.”

There has also been a small uptick in the level of fusarium in northern Alberta, where seed growers led the fight against removing fusarium from Alberta’s Agricultural Pests Act in 2020.

“Over the past couple of years, we have been seeing it more consistently in the north, but it’s always been a really low number of samples that test positive from up there,” said Blois. “This year, we haven’t had any. With the drier conditions, the inoculum that was there was not able to infect the crop in 2021.”

That bodes well for the 2022 growing season.

“This will help to decrease the amount of inoculum across much of the province. If there’s not a whole lot of infected stubble out there, you’re not going to have nearly the chance of it infecting future years.”

Even so, Alberta is just one wet year away from another jump in fusarium levels.

“It really depends on what next summer’s weather is going to be, and that’s difficult to predict,” said Blois. “If it turns out to be really dry again, it will be similar to this year, but if it’s wet, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it shoot back up again.”

But the good news is that, because fusarium levels were lower last year, there’s a better chance of finding fusarium-free seed — something that has been in short supply over the past few years.

“If you test your seed and it comes out positive at a high level, I would recommend looking at an alternative seed source, since most of the seed that was grown this year will be clean,” said Blois.

“This is a good opportunity to decrease the overall amount of fusarium that’s present in your fields.”

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The project was launched in the fall of 2020 with the goal of better understanding how farmers can manage, control and prevent the devastating disease. It included numerous partners, including three Alberta seed labs.

Results from over 8,600 cereal seed samples from 60 rural and two urban municipalities (collected from September to April) were used for this final report. The highest infection rate recorded was 91 per cent, however, the majority of samples tested negative and the average infection rate was 0.346 per cent. Germination values of 5,970 samples tested ranged from zero to 100 per cent, with the mean germination value being 93.21. Vigour values of 3,644 samples ranged from zero to 100 per cent, with the mean value being 88.45 per cent.

Fusarium head blight (FHB) infection comes from two basic sources: Windblown spores from crop residues such as stubble and stover/stalks, and infected seed. This project only documents detection of Fg seed infection and it can be assumed that when there was seed infection, it was likely caused by windblown spores. Therefore, it is assumed that areas with significant levels (greater than two per cent) of Fg infection have the pathogen established in crop residues and have elevated requirements for FHB management.

Sample location is reported based on the postal code to which the sample results were sent.

As a result, the second assumption is that the samples tested were produced in the municipalities where the results were sent. However, this may not be the case. (For example, the map shows samples tagged to Calgary and Edmonton.)

The map is intended to be a helpful guide. Used in conjunction with other FHB management tools such as the Fusarium Head Blight Environmental Risk Map, the information can help evaluate risk and plan management responses.

For example, in or near regions of higher disease incidence, growers are advised to participate in as many preventive FHB management activities as possible based on the risk of infection. This could include using long, diverse crop rotations (a two- to three-year break from host crops such as wheat and corn), planting seed with the best varietal resistance to FHB, using seed with low or no Fg infection, using seed treatment with fusarium species on the label, regular field scouting, and foliar spray protection when within IPM guidelines.

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While a paradigm shift, this was a positive development for our industry.

It meant the focus would transition to managing this potentially devastating disease with all the tools we have at our disposal.

Since then, our industry has come together to do just that.

As a network of community-minded businesses, the Alberta Seed Processors came together with key industry partners to help launch a three-year, province-wide study to determine what fusarium infection rates look like across the province. This study, which began last year, is part of the federal government’s Canadian Agricultural Partnership program. It is also supported by several of our regulatory and industry partners, including Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions, SGS, Seed Check, and 20/20 Seed Labs.

Already, this survey is proving a useful tool for farmers. We just launched the first take-away in early March, which showed fusarium infection rates in the province based on more than 5,000 grain samples collected from September to December.

The report (available at seedprocessors.ca) aggregates those results according to postal codes (where the lab test results were sent). Although not perfect (some results were sent to Edmonton and Calgary addresses), the data allowed a fusarium head blight risk map to be created.

In more than 20 counties, the number of positive samples was above 11 per cent. In several of them, the number of positive samples was above 30 per cent and three had a positive sample rate of above 50 per cent.

This map is a valuable tool for farmers as they make their pest management plans for the year and also for researchers as they study the evolution of this disease in our province.

But unfortunately, it will take more than this for farmers to effectively manage the disease.

Management options include using long, diverse crop rotations (a two- to three-year break from host crops such as wheat and corn), planting seed with the best varietal resistance to fusarium head blight, using seed with low or no fusarium graminearum infection, using seed treatment with ‘Fusarium’ on the label, regular field scouting, and foliar spray protection when warranted.

The best option for fusarium management right now is an overall program that includes as many control measures as possible.

The good news is, the agricultural community is making progress.

Plant breeders have established some genetic resistance to the disease in new crop varieties. In fact, researchers continue to make advancements. We have also learned and adopted best management practices to combat the disease recognizing various infection and environmental factors that play key roles in disease development.

But the most important focus right now should be on ensuring everyone is taking this issue seriously and managing their levels of fusarium on their own farms. This needs to be done as part of a holistic, integrated pest management plan.

This growing season, I hope everyone in our industry will work together to ensure we are staying on top of this issue. Because we’re all in this together. Let’s manage it!

Monica Klaas is the general manager of Alberta Seed Processors

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