Study of the correlation between the level of spore infestation and the development of fungal leaf diseases in winter wheat crops

Abstract

Wheat is the most important and most widespread agricultural crop in the world. Leaf diseases caused by fungal pathogens annually lead to a decrease in wheat yield by 15-20%, and in epiphytotic years by 40-70%. Traditional monitoring based on visual assessment of the development and spread of diseases of agricultural crops requires a lot of time and labor and is not always highly accurate due to the large areas of production. The use of technical means and information programs into agriculture will significantly speed up the process of forecasting and developing protective measures. Using data on the number of phytopathogen spores in crops as a threshold value for preventive treatments with fungicides will help solve this problem. With early detection of infection in small quantities, it is possible to use biological fungicides that can suppress the development of diseases and preserve the environment. The aim of the research is to determine the correlation between the level of spore infestation and the development of fungal leaf diseases in winter wheat crops. The studies were conducted at the field station of the FSBSI Federal Research Center of Biological Plant Protection, Krasnodar, in 2024. To study the species composition and concentration of phytopathogenic fungi spores, a device for determining the spore content of plants was used. As a result, correlation between the number of spores detected and the development of diseases in wheat crops was reliably demonstrated. In the future, the data obtained will form the basis for a new precision method of phytosanitary monitoring of wheat leaf diseases, which will allow diagnosing the presence of infection in crops before the initial manifestation of diseases or minimal development of pathogens and conducting timely treatments with fungicides.