Undergraduate student researches effects of fusarium head blight, grows career | VTx

Producers around the country work to combat crop diseases, spending time, money, and other valuable resources in their efforts. Fusarium head blight, one such bacterial disease, impacts a variety of plants. If left untreated, the disease affects the head of the plant, where it renders seeds unusable while also spreading the disease throughout the field and infecting the entire crop.

With the help of Nicholas Santantonio, an assistant professor in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, and Scott Lowman, director of the Institute of Advanced Learning and Research, Megan Pollok, a sophomore in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is researching the resistance of winter wheat to the disease to help save producers from its deadly effects.

The damage of fusarium head blight can vary for a producer, mostly depending on how much the head of the plant is lost and the final grade of the wheat. A major outbreak could reduce the crop to being used as animal feed.

“I wanted to do a research project with small grains, specifically wheat, so I reached out to Dr. Santantonio and asked him about a collaboration with the institute,” said Pollok, a Danville, Virginia, native. “We started working out the details that included eight different winter wheat varieties to see if I can inhibit the growth of fusarium head blight.”