Fusarium head blight (FHB) is an economically and physiologically damaging disease in barley due to revenue loss and the production of harmful mycotoxins. For example, revenue losses due to FHB can total in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year for U.S. barley growers. Breeding for resistance in barley has faced substantial challengeas, thus management of FHB is often achieved by applying chemical fungicides. However, pathogens are developing resistance to common fungicides, which is leading to calls for more sustainable solutions. Biological controls are a possible solution that could be used to control FHB pathogens. One potential source of biocontrols is the microbial communities of asymptomatic barley heads, which may be naturally effective against FHB. This study aimed to answer two questions: how the microbiomes of FHB symptomatic and asymptomatic barley heads differ and if the barley microbiome differs between farm locations. Both FHB symptomatic and asymptomatic barley heads were collected from four fields in central and northeastern North Dakota and fungal endophytes were cultured from asymptomatic spikelets to compare differences in microbiome communities. Load (as estimated by fungal isolations) is higher in symptomatic heads, across all four locations. Genetic sequencing is ongoing, but we expect to identify fungal endophyte taxa unique to, or enriched in, the asymptomatic heads relative to the symptomatic heads, and vice versa. In addition, microbiome composition is expected to differ between different field sites, based on previous results in barley and wheat microbiomes. After sequencing the fungal endophytes and analyzing their differences across symptomatic and asymptomatic barley head microbiomes, we hope to test fungal endophytes for their antagonism against Fusarium pathogens in vitro, as well as their ability to serve as biocontrol agents for FHB in barley plants.