CHAPTER 4: Fusarium Root and Crown Rot

Just before the author started a job in Pullman, the previously minor Fusarium root and crown rot caused major damage in fields of some of the best wheat farmers in Washington, who were the first to plant the new semi-dwarf variety of wheat, ‘Gaines.’ This gave him the opportunity, with his graduate and post-doctoral experience working on Fusarium root rot of beans and peas, to fully describe this disease for the first time. This included working out its epidemiology and collaborating with the breeder who developed the semi-dwarf wheat to identify useful degrees for tolerance, if not resistance, to this disease.