Identification of Native FHB Resistance QTL in the SRW Wheat Cultivar Jamestown

Abstract

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is a devastating fungal disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and results in significant economic losses due to reductions in grain yield and the accumulation of mycotoxins, such as deoxynivalenol (DON) and nivalenol (NIV). As a result, breeding programs have been working to identify resistance genes in wheat varieties known to be resistant to FHB. Some of the major quantitative trait loci (QTL) for FHB resistance identified to date have been from exotic sources such as 'Sumai3' and the Chinese landrace Wangshuibai, and native resistance has been identified in North American cultivars such as Ernie and Truman which are being used in breeding programs. This study was conducted to characterize and map QTL for resistance to FHB in the soft red winter wheat cultivar Jamestown and to identify tightly linked DNA markers associated with those QTL so that marker-assisted selection (MAS) can be used in pyramiding these and other known QTL into elite backgrounds. Types of resistance assessed in this study include: Type I (resistance to initial infection; incidence), Type II (resistance to spread in wheat spike; severity), and decreases in mycotoxin accumulation (DON) and percentage of Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK). A population composed of 186 F5:7 recombinant-inbred lines (RILs) from the cross Pioneer Brand '25R47'/Jamestown were used to evaluate these traits in six environments (MD, NC, and VA in 2011 and 2012). This study identified a QTL for resistance to DON accumulation and FHB severity on the wheat chromosome 1B. The QTL accounted for 12.7% to 13.3% of the phenotypic variation in DON accumulation and 26.1% of the phenotypic variation in FHB severity. The most diagnostic marker for the QTL on chromosome 1B associated with resistance to FHB severity and DON accumulation is Xwmc500.6 located 7.2 cM from the QTL peak and flanked by markers Xwmc500.7 and Xgwm273.2 (28.2 cM interval).