Natural habitats are reservoirs of Fusarium lineages highly pathogenic on Triticum aestivum

Fusarium lineages isolated from natural populations of Brassica rapa include strains highly aggressive on Triticum aestivum, with aggressiveness linked to isolation locality, especially Brittany.

• Why it matters: Crop epidemics depend on how Fusarium persists outside fields, and fungicide reduction increases the need to track non-agricultural reservoirs that could seed wheat disease.
• What they did: The study isolated Fusarium from natural Brassica rapa populations, used phylogenomics to assess lineage diversity and locality-linked population structure, then tested aggressiveness by wheat inoculation assays and microscopy colonization in wheat and Brassica.
• The result: Wheat variety strongly affected disease development, and colonization differed by host—mostly root surface in Brassica versus inter-cellular spread with vascular colonization in wheat shoots—supporting non-agricultural habitats as sources of highly pathogenic wheat Fusarium.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.