Bacterial and Fungal Pathogen Synergetics after Co-infection in the Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract

Wheat is one of the most important staple grains in the world and the leading source of calories, production is limited by biotic stress. There is a number of pathogen attacks on wheat crops, depending on environmental conditions. In some cases, more than one crop pathogen attack leads to higher damage or decrease susceptibility. There are very few studies in the field of multiple pathogen interactions; in this study, we analyzed the co-infectionof wheat with fungal and bacterial pathogens. Field isolated Xanthomonas translucens and Xanthomonas compestris bacteria have been used against GM-322 and PDKV varieties co-infected with Fusarium fungus spp.  In our experiment, we used Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium graminearum, Fusarium equitus. Compared to the combined effect of the fungus and bacteria, we measured the length and width of the infected leaf part. We have observed that there is more susceptibility to X. compestris and F. graminearium in the GM-322 wheat variety. The second susceptible cvs was PDKV when we co-infected F. oxysporum and then X. translucens fungal and bacterial infected symptom analysis showed yellow stripes on the leaf surface of the wheat crop. We observed head blight in wheat when it was infected with F. graminearum and X. compestris. As a result, we concluded that varietal susceptibility also depends on co-infection pathogen attacks and their synergetic interaction.