Cooperating countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Austria

Coordinating institution: Egerton University

Project coordinator: Dr. Miriam Karwitha Charimbu

Partner institution: Haramaya University, Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (Biotechnology Research Institute), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU)

Project duration: 01.07.2023 - 30.06.2026

Wheat is a staple food crop of increasing importance in developing countries including sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It’s used as a food crop for household food security, cash crop and for income generation. Presently, there is an increasing demand for wheat in African countries, for instance more than 50 % of domestic wheat supply in East Africa is through importation which makes the region highly vulnerable to problems in global wheat supply market (FAOSTAT, 2020). The deficit in wheat production is attributed to by the effects of biotic and abiotic factors. Major abiotic constraints include, post-harvest losses including climatic and agro input requirements. Biotic constraints include fungal diseases which lead to losses range from trace to 100% loss due to occurrence of epidemics such as the impact of race Ug99 of stem rust of wheat. Fusarium head blight (FHB), primarily caused by F. graminearum is an emerging wheat disease affecting the quantity and quality of wheat and subsequently contaminate the end products/commodities of wheat with notorious toxic mycotoxins. All Kenya wheat cultivars are susceptible to Fusarium infection (Muthomi et al., 2002).  Studies done in Kenya show that the prevalence of FHB and yield loss due to FHB vary from trace to 100% (Wagasha et al., 2010, Muthomi et al., 2002). Similarly in the recent study conducted in Ethiopian, 93.56% of wheat fields were infected with FHB (Getahun et al., 2022). Thus, evaluating the genetic resistance of wheat genotypes against fungal diseases including FHB diseases and the causal pathogens of those crops and mycotoxin accumulations are the paramount activities for producing the resistant materials with regional adaptation and acceptance by local farmers in African countries.