Human beings demand for wheat has been significantly increasing over the last decades due to westernization of diet and its consumption. The unique viscoelastic and adhesive properties of gluten proteins facilitate production of wheat and give numerous advantages in commercial industry. Therefore, for desired plant populations and sufficient harvesting the pathogen-free healthy seed is essential. The majority of plant pathogens are seed-borne and fungal pathogens have the most harmful effect on the harvest comparing with bacterial and nematode pathogens. Fungi is the second most widespread wheat pathogen after insects and the amount of seed deterioration rate is too significant for the food industry. For a high harvest rate, the qualified certified seeds are need to be used, therefore stored seeds need to be examined well for pathogens. In our study, we detected the soil wheat diseases and tested various methods for detecting seed fungi present in 8 wheat samples collected from harvested seed loads of irrigated wheat fields from the capital city of Ukraine, Kyiv.

Keywords : Fungi, Seed Borne, Wheat, Pathogen, Diseases.