Screening of Wheat Varieties for Fusarium Disease Using Cycloheximide (CHX) as Selection Agent in Culture Media

Fusarium Head Blight caused by Fusarium spp. results reduction in yield and grain quality by contamination of grain with mycotoxins mainly deoxynivalenol. Because of deoxynivalenol is very toxic and expensive, it is important strategy to substitute deoxynivalenol by another safe and cheap agent to screen wheat varieties on in vitro condition. Cycloheximide is a protein synthesis inhibitor and acts in same manner of inhibition which deoxynivalenol causes it. Therefore, it may be practical to use it for this purpose. In this research potentially application of cycloheximide was studied by using 6 wheat varieties with different resistance level to Fusarium disease in two separate experiments using deoxynivalenol and cycloheximide. These varieties have been screend for Fusarium head blight in field and greenhouse. Number of germinated seeds and Number of seeds with coleoptiles longer than 2 mm was recorded in media containing different concentrations of deoxynivalenol or cycloheximide. The results showed high positive correlation between two experiments and it is possible to use cycloheximide for screen wheat varieties for Fusaium in in vitro selection