Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
November 20, 2002

Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) has announced new funding for the barley Fusarium head blight (FHB) disease nursery in Brandon, Manitoba. The funding will come from interest generated by the Reserve Fund for the Barley Check-off Fund.

FHB has emerged over the past decade as the most serious disease of barley in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan, resulting in multi-million dollar losses annually, and its incidence has steadily spread westward. In response, the Brandon FHB nursery was established in 2000 as a screening facility to help plant breeders develop new barley varieties with greater FHB resistance.

The nursery is one-of-a-kind in the Canadian prairie and it provides a valuable resource for breeders across the country. It is run by specialists in pathology and breeding, along with a team of technicians, who screen thousands of lines annually for resistance to both the FHB-causing pathogen and to deoxynivalenol (DON), the mycotoxin produced by FHB. The results have dramatically boosted the speed and efficiency of breeders to identify barley varieties with lower susceptibility to Fusarium and select promising lines for breeding.

Despite its importance, the barley FHB nursery has faced the prospect of closing down. It has been supported by producer funds through WGRF, along with federal funds and provincial grants from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but the bulk of this funding is due to expire in spring 2003. The new funding approved by WGRF's producer Board at its regular fall meeting will help support the facility through 2006.

"This funding signals the high importance of the barley FHB nursery to producers in Western Canada," says Dr. Keith Degenhardt, a Hughenden, Alberta, producer and Chair of WGRF, which represents 18 diverse agricultural organizations across the region. "The Board is hopeful this will encourage other potential funders to step forward."

The Wheat and Barley Check-off Funds, which support breeding research for those crops, are WGRF's primary funding sources. Each Fund is backed by a Reserve Fund.

"The Reserve Fund for the Barley Check-off is set-up to maintain check-off funding in the event of a serious crop failure," says Degenhardt. "The board has decided to use a portion of the interest on this Reserve Fund to support the FHB nursery, which is a natural complement to the main breeding effort."

The Foundation also supports a sister disease nursery for FHB in wheat, located at the University of Manitoba's research site near Carman, Man. This wheat nursery funding - allocated from 2001-2003 - supports the evaluation of breeding and co-op trial lines, while a matching grant supports related screening methodology, epidemiology research and rotation studies.

The new funding allocation for the barley nursery was one of several key agenda items at the Foundation's fall Board meeting. The meeting took on added importance this year, as the Foundation moved forward a process for developing new long-term funding agreements with breeding institutions. Progress is on track for new agreements to be in place by 2004, when the current 10-year funding agreements are set to expire.

Western Grains Research Foundation administers the Wheat and Barley Check-off Funds and the Endowment Fund, which together allocate over $4 million annually to research. Regular updates on funding progress and activity are featured on the WGRF Web site, www.westerngrains.com.