Project Number: 1920-22000-031-02
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Sep 20, 2003
End Date: Sep 19, 2008

Objective:
The objective of this cooperative research project is an effort to develop, through laboratory research at FDWSRU and field testing in Greece, a Greek isolate of the smut fungus Microbotryum cardui as a biological control agent for weeds in the genus Carduus and closely related thistles (7 species) that were introduced to the U.S. These thistles and the smut fungus are indigenous to Greece. The goals are to: 1) determine the efficacy of the fungus in infecting and damaging these thistles in the field in Greece and 2) determine the host range among related non-target species.

Approach:
Teliospores of M. cardui, collected in Greece from 2002-2005, will be used at the EBCL substation at American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece, where a technician will be hired to inoculate Carduus and related plants, including Cirsium spp., Cynara scolymus, and Carthamus tinctorius. Successful reisolations of teliospores from inoculated plants will be sent to FDWSRU for ITS sequence analysis and comparison to the original isolates. At the same time as the infection and host range studies are being set up, a separate set of patches of Carduus and related thistles, that have been reported as hosts of M. cardui, will be located and inoculated with M. cardui. All plants within the patches will be inoculated. The patches will be monitored each successive spring for the presence of teliospore-producing capitula. At the conclusion of the project, the effect of M. cardui on the number and proportion of infected plants of each type (systemically and locally infected) and density of each species will be analyzed by comparing observed infected and non-infected plant dynamics to simulated dynamics.