Integrated flea beetle management for the future of canola production in Canada
Term: 5 years
Status: Ongoing
Researcher(s): Robert Duncan, Alejandro Costamagna, Harmeet Chawla, Claudio Stasolla, U of M; Dwayne Hegedus, Sally Vail, Isobel Parkin, AAFC
SaskOilseeds Investment: $166,663.67
Total Project Cost: $499,991.25
Funding Partners: WGRF, MCGA
Objective
Evaluate Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Brassica napus germplasm with trichomes in the field in conjunction with seed treatments and foliar insecticides (Years 1 – 3).
Evaluate Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Brassica villosa recombinant inbred lines under natural flea beetle pressure in the field (Years 1 – 3).
Introgress flea beetle resistance-related traits into B. napus spring genotypes (Years 1 – 2).
Identify the genotypes with improved flea beetle resistance and acceptable agronomic performance. (Years 3 – 5).
Project Description
It is estimated that flea beetles cause economic losses of over $300 million annually in North America and represent the major insect threat to canola. Yield loss of 10 % is common when flea beetles are abundant. Common management of flea beetles include a seed treatment or combination of seed treatments, followed by foliar insecticide applications.
However, the above yield loss can still occur following the seed treatment or foliar insecticide applications. As a result, yield loss is still common even after major chemical input costs have been incurred. In recent years, it is common to apply a foliar insecticide multiple times per crop, sometimes four or more applications per year need to be applied to protect the crop. These multiple foliar insecticide applications can have negative health impacts and affect non-target species as well as beneficial insects. There are also reports of insecticide tolerance in striped flea beetles and alternative integrated strategies are required for long-term, sustainable flea beetle management.
It is imperative that the canola industry tackles this major production issue in a more integrated fashion. This integrated management strategy needs to incorporate agronomic practices and host resistance, in order to decrease the reliance on insecticides. Host resistance is normally a key factor in the management of diseases and insects. Host resistance to flea beetles has been extremely challenging, and currently no commercial cultivars have any level of flea beetle resistance.
Researchers at AAFC have made progress on flea beetle resistance. Gruber et al. developed genotypes with trichomes (leaf hairs) that deterred flea beetle feeding. They demonstrated that hairy canola can significantly reduce flea beetle damage to approximately 12 % on the first and second leaves. At the three to four leaf stage, a reduction in flea beetle damage was approximately 2-fold. Unfortunately, this resistance was controlled by multiple transgenic events and the cost of the regulatory approval process for a new transgenic trait was not feasible.
Recent research at AAFC has focused on natural sources of leaf hairiness, anthocyanin pigment production and the impact of waxiness in Brassica napus and related species. Drs. Hegedus, Parkin and Vail at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have recently held two Canola Cluster grants in 2018 and 2023. In the first canola cluster, their goal was to map the genes responsible for trichome abundance in hairy B. napus and B. villosa lines. They developed B. napus populations and phenotyped and genotyped these doubled haploid populations. They also developed recombinant inbred lines from an extremely hairy B. villosa X glabrous B. oleracea cross (referred to as B. villosa). The current cluster funding focuses on the fine mapping of the B. napus trait and markers/coordinates to track it, introgression of the B. villosa C-genome trait into B. napus and bioassays of lines for flea beetle susceptibility indoors.
The proposed CARP grant is intended to build upon the excellent progress that Drs. Hegedus, Parkin, Vail and team have made. In collaboration with these scientists, we intend to see how the hairy B. napus genotypes perform under field conditions. We will also determine their interaction with common seed treatments and foliar insecticides. It is also necessary to determine how the B. villosa RILs perform under flea beetle pressure in the field. The B. napus genotypes also appear to be semi-winter genotypes. Thus, this resistance needs to be introgressed into spring B. napus germplasm and evaluated in the field.