Poster # 515 View Poster

Shahed Safar ¹, Yueqiang Leng ¹, Alireza Poursafar ¹, Olawumi Amusan ¹, Amna Riasat ¹, Cassie J Monson ¹, Jatinder Singh ¹, Raj Sekhar Nandety ², Mary Osenga ², Jason Fiedler ², Zhaohui Liu ¹, Steven Xu ³, Shaobin Zhong ^1,4
1. North Dakota State University, Department of Plant Pathology, Fargo, ND
2. USDA-ARS, Cereal Crops Research Unit, Fargo, ND
3. USDA-ARS, Crop Improvement and Genetics Research Unit, Western Regional Research Center, Albany, CA
4. USDA-ARS, Cereal Disease Laboratory, St. Paul, MN
Corresponding Author: Shaobin Zhong, Shaobin.Zhong@usda.gov

Safar, Shahed

shahed.safar@ndsu.edu

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a devastating disease affecting both bread and durum wheat, and use of host resistance is one of the major components in mitigating the impact of the disease. Fhb1 is one of the most widely used resistance genes in wheat breeding programs, but its effectiveness in different genetic backgrounds of hosts is still not very well understood. In this study, we introduced Fhb1 into six adapted spring wheat cultivars (Linkert, WA8283, Glenn, ND VitPro, Surpass, and Dayn) and one durum cultivar (ND Riveland) by crossing with Alsen as the donor parent followed by backcrossing the progeny to the recipient parents. After seven cycles of backcrosses in combination with a greenhouse speed breeding protocol, which involved embryo rescue and marker-assisted selection, we developed six Near-Isogenic Lines (NILs) in spring common wheat backgrounds and one in durum wheat background at BC₇F₂. We genotyped these seven NILs plus four NILs (N-1, N-38, W-7, and W-9) carrying Fhb1 from Sumai 3 in the genetic backgrounds of wheat cultivars Norm and Wheaton, respectively, along with their respective recurrent parents using the wheat 90K Infinium SNP array. The results indicated that the NILs with Fhb1 shared 91% to 99% genetic background of their recurrent parents and contained a donor segment harboring the Fhb1 locus on chromosome 3B. We evaluated the NILs along with the recurrent parents for FHB resistance under greenhouse and field conditions during the 2023-2024 seasons. The disease phenotyping data showed that the NILs carrying Fhb1 generally had lower average FHB severity compared to their recurrent parents. In the greenhouse, three NILs carrying Fhb1 (Linkert, W-7, and N-1) exhibited significantly lower disease severity than their parents, with reductions in disease severity values of about 11%, 20%, and 41%, respectively, compared to their recurrent parent. However, no significant differences in FHB severities between NILs and their respective parents were observed under field conditions. Collectively, these results suggest that Fhb1 introgressed into elite wheat cultivars is not always effective, depending on the genetic background and environmental factors.  

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