Engineering null mutants in ZmFER1 confers resistance to ear rot caused by Fusarium verticillioides in maize

Fusarium ear rot (FER), a fungal disease caused by Fusarium spp., leads to great yield losses to maize worldwide and to mycotoxin contamination, which seriously threatens human and animal health (Yao et al., 2020). Knockout of the susceptible TaHRC allele improved FHB resistance (Chen et al., 2022; Su et al., 2019). Because FER and FHB could be caused by the same fungus (Li et al., 2019; Yao et al., 2020), we hypothesized that engineering TaHRC homologues in maize could represent a novel approach to FER resistance breeding. Eight days after self-pollination, we performed inoculation of the ears through the silk channel using a 2 mL conidial suspension (1 × 106 spores/mL) and covered each ear with a bag to reduce natural infection (Ding et al., 2008).