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Prediction and warnings are important for growers to timely respond to treats and optimize the growth of crops. The MycoKey app was developed to aid mycotoxin risk mitigation by growers, grain collectors, governmental planners and policy makers. The MycoKey app predicts the amounts of the most important mycotoxins in winter wheat (DON) and grain maize (Aflatoxin B1 and Fumonisin) based on local weather data and predictive models. It provides direct links to the scientific articles describing the models in detail. Both access to the platform and the MycoKey app is free of charge and user data are private. Enlist at https://akkerweb.eu/en-gb/ and download the free MycoKey app. Growers can calculate the predicted amount of mycotoxins in their crops with local weather information and relevant agronomic measures such as ploughing or the level of plant resistance based on a list of cultivars. Grain collectors, governmental planners and policy makers have access to public databases including satellite data, and can calculate mycotoxin risks based on weather data and land use (if publicly available). Recalculation allows integration of management strategies in the risk model and calculations of "what if" scenarios. The risk analysis was performed for the mycotoxin DON in winter wheat and in 2019 and 2020 DON mycotoxin risks for winter wheat were low in the Belgium and the Netherlands. In contrast in 2021 conditions were more conducive for Fusarium and the risks for DON were much higher particular in the northern part of the Netherlands. The Mycokey app was used to create awareness and helped to initiate responses in the chain to mitigate mycotoxin risks in the Netherlands. The early warning was made possible by filling the gap between forecast and harvest time using historic weather available for the last 40 years. These historic data can also be applied to assess the impact of weather in climate change scenarios. The need for an integrated approach to mitigate mycotoxin risks in crop management systems will be discussed.

During the last ten years, Norwegian cereal grain industry has experienced large challenges due to Fusarium spp. and Fusarium mycotoxin contamination of small-grained cereals. To prevent severely contaminated grain lots from entering the grain supply chain, it is important to establish surveys for the most prevalent Fusarium spp. and mycotoxins. The objective of our study was to quantify and calculate the associations between Fusarium spp. and mycotoxins prevalent in oats and spring wheat. In a 6-year period from 2004-2009, 178 grain samples of spring wheat and 289 samples of oats were collected from farmers' fields in South East Norway. The grains were analysed for 18 different Fusarium-mycotoxins by liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry. Generally, the median mycotoxin levels were higher than reported in Norwegian studies covering previous years. The DNA content of Fusarium graminearum, Fusarium culmorum, Fusarium langsethiae, Fusarium poae and Fusarium avenaceum were determined by quantitative PCR. We identified F. graminearum as the main deoxynivalenol (DON) producer in oats and spring wheat, and F. langsethiae as the main HT-2 and T-2-toxins producer in oats. No association was observed between quantity of F. graminearum DNA and quantity of F. langsethiae DNA nor for their respective mycotoxins, in oats. F. avenaceum was one of the most prevalent Fusarium species in both oats and spring wheat. The following ranking of Fusarium species was made based on the DNA concentrations of the Fusarium spp. analysed in this survey (from high to low): F. graminearum = F. langsethiae = F. avenaceum > F. poae > F. culmorum (oats); F. graminearum = F. avenaceum > F. culmorum > F. poae = F. langsethiae (spring wheat). Our results are in agreement with recently published data indicating a shift in the relative prevalence of Fusarium species towards more F. graminearum versus F. culmorum in Norwegian oats and spring wheat.

The oomycetePhytophthora infestanswas the causal agent of the Irish Great Famine and is a recurring threat to global food security. The pathogen can reproduce both sexually and asexually and has a potential to adapt both abiotic and biotic environment. Although in many regions the A1 and A2 mating types coexist, the far majority of isolates belong to few clonal, asexual lineages. As other oomycetes,P. infestansis thought to be diploid during the vegetative phase of its life cycle, but it was observed that trisomy correlated with virulence and mating type locus and that polyploidy can occur in some isolates. It remains unknown about the frequency of polyploidy occurrence in nature and the relationship between ploidy level and sexuality. Here we discovered that the sexuality ofP. infestansisolates correlates with ploidy by comparison of microsatellite fingerprinting, genome-wide polymorphism, DNA quantity, and chromosome numbers. The sexual progeny ofP. infestansin nature are diploid, whereas the asexual lineages are mostly triploids, including successful clonal lineages US-1 and 13_A2. This study reveals polyploidization as an extra evolutionary risk to this notorious plant destroyer.

Summary: Fumonisins are a family of carcinogenic secondary metabolites produced by members of the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex (FFSC) and rare strains of Fusarium oxysporum. In Fusarium, fumonisin biosynthetic genes (FUM) are clustered, and the cluster is uniform in gene organization. Here, sequence analyses indicated that the cluster exists in five different genomic contexts, defining five cluster types. In FUM gene genealogies, evolutionary relationships between fusaria with different cluster types were largely incongruent with species relationships inferred from primary-metabolism (PM) gene genealogies, and FUM cluster types are not trans-specific. In addition, synonymous site divergence analyses indicated that three FUM cluster types predate diversification of FFSC. The data are not consistent with balancing selection or interspecific hybridization, but they are consistent with two competing hypotheses: (i) multiple horizontal transfers of the cluster from unknown donors to FFSC recipients and (ii) cluster duplication and loss (birth and death). Furthermore, low levels of FUM gene divergence in F.bulbicola, an FFSC species, and F.oxysporum provide evidence for horizontal transfer of the cluster from the former, or a closely related species, to the latter. Thus, uniform gene organization within the FUM cluster belies a complex evolutionary history that has not always paralleled the evolution of Fusarium. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 90 2 October 2013 10.1111/mmi.12362 Research Articles Research Article Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

This article documents the addition of 396 microsatellite marker loci to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Anthocidaris crassispina, Aphis glycines, Argyrosomus regius, Astrocaryum sciophilum, Dasypus novemcinctus, Delomys sublineatus, Dermatemys mawii, Fundulus heteroclitus, Homalaspis plana, Jumellea rossii, Khaya senegalensis, Mugil cephalus, Neoceratitis cyanescens, Phalacrocorax aristotelis, Phytophthora infestans, Piper cordulatum, Pterocarpus indicus, Rana dalmatina, Rosa pulverulenta, Saxifraga oppositifolia, Scomber colias, Semecarpus kathalekanensis, Stichopus monotuberculatus, Striga hermonthica, Tarentola boettgeri and Thermophis baileyi. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Aphis gossypii, Sooretamys angouya, Euryoryzomys russatus, Fundulus notatus, Fundulus olivaceus, Fundulus catenatus, Fundulus majalis, Jumellea fragrans, Jumellea triquetra Jumellea recta, Jumellea stenophylla, Liza richardsonii, Piper marginatum, Piper aequale, Piper darienensis, Piper dilatatum, Rana temporaria, Rana iberica, Rana pyrenaica, Semecarpus anacardium, Semecarpus auriculata, Semecarpus travancorica, Spondias acuminata, Holigarna grahamii, Holigarna beddomii, Mangifera indica, Anacardium occidentale, Tarentola delalandii, Tarentola caboverdianus and Thermophis zhaoermii.

Fusarium-aarziekte of kalfjesrood is vanwege de opbrengstderving een probleem in granen. Feitelijk wordt Fusarium-aarziekte veroorzaakt door een complex van schimmels dat in steeds andere samenstelling het gewas belaagt. Van recenter datum is de zorg over het vermogen van verschillende Fusariumsoorten om mycotoxinen te produceren. Deze secundaire metabolieten vormen reeds in geringe hoeveelheden een bedreiging voor de gezondheid van mens en dier. De Europese Commissie heeft daarom actielimieten vastgesteld voor een aantal mycotoxinen, terwij; voor enkele andere deze regels aanstaande zijn (Verordening (EG) nr. 1881/2006; Verordening (EG) nr. 1126/2007). Vanwege de steeds strengere normen voor diverse mycotoxinen in voedsel en voer zijn bji ongunstige teeltcondities partijen niet vermarktbaar en kan een tekort aan het te verwerken graanproduct ontstaan

The re-emergence of fusarium head blight throughout the world and especially in Western Europe prompted a survey of the situation in the Netherlands. To allow for a high throughput screening of large numbers of samples, a diagnostic PCR method was developed to detect the most common species of Fusarium occurring on wheat. Seven primer pairs were tested for their ability to identify isolates of Fusarium avenaceum, F. culmorum, F. graminearum, F. poae, F. proliferatum and Microdochium nivale var. majus and M. nivale var. nivale. Each primer pair only generated a PCR product with the corresponding Fusarium species and all PCR fragments had different molecular sizes. This allowed the generation of these amplicons using a mixture of all seven primer pairs. The robustness of this multiplex PCR encouraged us to screen a large series of isolates collected in 2000 and 2001. In both years 40 fields were sampled leading to a collection of 209 isolates from 2000 and 145 isolates from 2001. The results of the multiplex PCR demonstrated that F. graminearum was the most abundant species in the Fusarium complex on wheat in both years. This is in sharp contrast to reports from the 1980s and early 1990s, which found F. culmorum as the predominant species. Primers derived from the tri7 and tri13 genes, which are implicated in the acetylation and oxygenation of the C-4 atom of the backbone of the trichothecene molecule, were used to discriminate between deoxynivalenol and nivalenol (NIV) producers. The populations of F. culmorum and F. graminearum both showed a slight increase in NIV-producers in 2001

The I-2 locus in tomato confers resistance to race 2 of the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum f sp lycopersici. The selective restriction fragment amplification (AFLP) positional cloning strategy was used to identify I-2 in the tomato genome. A yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) clone covering ~750 kb encompassing the I-2 locus was isolated, and the AFLP technique was used to derive tightly linked AFLP markers from this YAC clone. Genetic complementation analysis in transgenic R1 plants using a set of overlapping cosmids covering the I-2 locus revealed three cosmids giving full resistance to F. o. lycopersici race 2. These cosmids shared a 7-kb DNA fragment containing an open reading frame encoding a protein with similarity to the nucleotide binding site leucine-rich repeat family of resistance genes. At the I-2 locus, we identified six additional homologs that included the recently identified I-2C-1 and I-2C-2 genes. However, cosmids containing the I-2C-1 or I-2C-2 gene could not confer resistance to plants, indicating that these members are not the functional resistance genes. Alignments between the various members of the I-2 gene family revealed two significant variable regions within the leucine-rich repeat region. They consisted of deletions or duplications of one or more leucine-rich repeats. We propose that one or both of these leucine-rich repeats are involved in Fusarium wilt resistance with I-2 specificity.