Interaction between the wheat cultivar 'Recital' and 3 Fusarium graminearum strains

The responses of the susceptible wheat 'Recital' to 3 Fusarium graminearum strains of contrasting aggressiveness (MDC_Fg1, MDC_Fg13 and MDC_FgU1) were studied during Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) progress. A complete factorial design was designed for this experiment. The combination of the four treatments (3 F. graminearum strains + mock) and the three time points measured on four biological replicates (except for MDC_Fg13 x 72hpi modality condition with 3 replicates ) represent a total of 47 samples. F. graminearum strains were inoculated at mid-anthesis with 10 µL of a solution at a concentration of 105 spores/mL in the floral cavity of the six central spikelets of three synchronous flowering spikes (18 spikelets per biological replicate). For the mock samples, water was inoculated according to the same procedure. For each individual, only the inoculated spikelets were collected and immediately placed in liquid nitrogen. Samples were ground in fine powder and stored at -80 °C before RNA extractions.