Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus infections in Southern Alberta, 2023

Jul 04, 2023

Wheat streak mosaic (WSM) is a disease caused by the Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV). The virus is
vectored by the movement and feeding of the wheat curl mite (Aceria tosichella). Infected plants are
usually stunted and produce fewer seeds, which are often badly shriveled. The earlier the infection, the
greater is the effect on the plant. Plants may die, fail to set seed, be stunted or show little effect
depending on when they were infected.

Most years the virus and vector do not survive winter, so we do not often see early season symptoms in
Alberta wheat fields. The most recent epidemic in Alberta was in 2017. In 2022, more than ten fields
were confirmed in southern Alberta. As of the end of June 2023, close to twenty fields are confirmed.
The area currently reporting symptoms is south of the Red Deer River.
Scout for symptoms

Producers, agronomists, and crop scouts are encouraged to watch for symptoms of WSMV on wheat
(winter, spring, durum), barley, corn and all other cereals and grasses. Wheat is by far the most
susceptible host, followed by barley, so these crops are most likely to have symptoms. Once wheat or
barley becomes infected, symptoms may appear within a few days.

Video: From Students to Solutions | On The Brink: Season 2, Episode 14

Ask Canada’s most decorated soybean breeder his favourite part of the job and he doesn’t name a single variety. He names the students.

Istvan Rajcan is a professor of soybean breeding and genetics in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph, where he has run the soybean breeding program for 28 and a half years. In that time he has developed 87 soybean cultivars, published 140 refereed papers and trained 51 graduate students. In 2025 he received the Public Sector Impact Award from the National Association for Plant Breeding.

He is also worried. In this episode he says Canada is at a crossroads, pointing to recent government cuts to plant breeding programs and to the facilities that support them. His prescription is structural. "Plant breeding funding formula has to be a long-term one," he says.

The formula he is defending is the public-private matching arrangement his program runs on. Private seed companies fund the work, provincial or federal money matches it, and the combined pool stretches each dollar further than either source could alone. At the National Association for Plant Breeding annual meeting in June, he says American public breeders were often surprised at how well that collaboration works in Canada.

He also describes how the people entering plant breeding have changed. His early graduate students came mostly from farms. More recently they include, in his words, "city kids who just became excited about genetics."

Topics covered:

Why public-private plant breeding funding in Canada needs a long-term

commitment rather than a larger one

How matching private seed company investment with provincial and federal

dollars multiplies research capacity

How the graduate student pipeline into plant breeding has shifted from

farm kids to city kids