Dr. Tom Hsiang2026-06-082026-06-08https://dspace.academy.edu.ly/handle/123456789/2227Many countries rely on cereals as the essential food grain source for consumption. The most important grains are wheat (Triticum spp.), rice (Oryza sativa), oats (Avena sativa), barley (Hordeum vulgare), rye (Secale cereale), corn (Zea mays) and millet (Panicum miliaceum) (Raquel et al., 2013). Wheat also is a necessary food in the human diet because it provides vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids and fiber (Shewry, 2009). Wheat and rice together represent the essential food for 80% of the World's population (Callejo, 2002). Doe et al. (2013) listed valuable nutrients in wheat flour as proteins, carbohydrates, fibers, vitamins, minerals and significant levels of fats. Wheat flour is consumed mostly in products such as pasta or noodles, bread, cakes, and pies. Wheat is so widely used because of a significant property that when wheat flour is mixed with water, it will produce the protein complex called gluten which determines the dough quality for bread and different baking products (Doe et al., 2013Common wheat which accounts for the majority of human consumption is Triticum aestivum var. vulgare, and hard wheat is T. durum. Together they are the most important food grain source for humans (MacRae et al., 1993). Modern wheat cultivars, both common and durum derive from an existing ancestor called wild emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum) (Zaharieva et al., 2010). There are many cultivars of wheat which are grown in many countries around the world based on wheat adaptability (McKevith, 2004). In 2003, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggested that the main countries producing wheat are USA, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, European countries, Canada, Argentina, and Australia, which together harvested 556.4 million tonnes of wheat, representing 30% of the world’s grain production (Rashid, 2003). In 2019, Statistics Canada estimated the average export value of wheat was $7 billion annually, and the harvested area was over 10 million ha. Wheat is an annual grass with a height ranging from 60 cm to 1.8 m in older varieties. The plants have foliage on slender stalks that produce spikes, or ears of grain at the top of the plant. Each spike or kernel is made up of spikelets, which encloses the wheat grain between the lemma and the palea. The grain also varies in size between varieties and have brush-like awns, that may be long or short depending on the variety. The wheat seed is oval and gives the grain its nutritional value. Cultivated wheat is most commonly grown with the human selected feature of the fusiform spike, which is awned or awnless and is quickly winnowed (McKevith, 2004).PATHOGENS OF TRITICUM