## 2 Fusarium Head Blight (FHB)  
### FHB and Crops  
FHB was first described by [PERSON] of England in his 1884 book, _Diseases of Field and Garden Crops_[25]. Since then, this disease that mainly affects small cereal grain crops has been better characterized from a brief but detailed description of the symptomatology in [PERSON]'s book to a complex disease that has had a devastating effect on the cereal crop industry worldwide over the last century. With increased human migration around the globe, crops such as wheat grew in prominence and so did FHB colonisation of wheat and other crops. This disease is now endemic to certain parts of Africa, Asia mainly China, Europe, South and North America leading to major outbreaks in North America in the early 20 th and 21 st centuries [26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33]. The first Canadian case of an FHB outbreak was reported in 1919 [34]. Losses in eastern Canada date back to at least the early 1940s. Western Canadian fields across Manitoba were first affected in 1923, although no serious outbreaks were reported until 1984 [35]. After these events, the contemporary survey data of FHB prevalence and severity in wheat crop started in 1987 throughout Canada [34], a few years after reports of serious outbreaks were made. Since then, survey data has been continuously updated to reflect all FHB outbreaks and epidemics in Canada.  
However, data collection and breeding for resistance remain complicated because the FHB disease in cereals is caused by several _Fusarium_ species. Some of the more commonly known species include, _F. chlamdsporum, F. boothii, F. scirpi, F. arthrosporoides, F.  
poae, F. aenaceum, F. culmorum, F. graminearum, F. verticillioides, F. asiaticum, and F. cortade-riae_[36]. Over the years, the complex has been regularly updated with the use of current technological advances such as multilocus genotyping (MLGT), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and next-generation DNA sequencing platforms [37; 38; 39; 40; 3, 37]. Recent molecular advancements revealed the existence of _Fusarium graminearum_ species complex (FGSC), also known as _F. graminearum sensu lato_ with 16 formally described phylogenetically distinct species [3; 4; 39; 40]. These are among the most important FHB causative species on a global scale. North and South America (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay) registered _F. graminearum sensu strcito_ as the primary aetiological agent of FHB outbreaks over the last decades [26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 32; 33; 34; 31]. Other important _Fusarium_ species in North America includes _F. culmorum_ and _F. poae_[37; 42]. In other world agroecological zones, the most abundant species strongly correlate to geographical location. In Eastern Asia, in the cooler regions of North Japan, _F. graminearum_ is the predominant species in diseased crops, while in the more arid southern region _F. asiatim_ dominates [43]. A similar trend is also seen in China, in which _F. graminearum_ is the most abundant pathogen in diseased cereal crops in the North and _F. asciatium_ dominates the South of China [44]. In Europe, a complex of species, _F. graminearum_, _F. aenaceum_, _F. culmorum_, and _F. poae_, are mainly associated with FHB; however, in most cases, it was reported that _F. graminearum_ was the primary cause of FHB in many European countries [45]. On the African continent, in countries such as Kenya, _F. graminearum_, _F. poae_, and _F. chlamdosporum_[46] are the prevalent species, while a novel species _F. aetihiopium_ that is frequently the cause of FHB, is registered in Ethiopia [3].