This work represents, in part, our foray into the use of Virus Induced Genes Silencing (VIGS), for knocking down the expression of wheat genes, and testing the effect of these knockdowns on the plants resistance to wheat fungal diseases, such as Fusarium head blight (FHB). In this instance we identified a novel variant of the VIGS expression system that imposes less ‘viral’ stress on the plant system, to enable more meaningful phenotyping of the FHB disease over the course of the experiment.