Authors: Yahya Rauf 1, Abdullah FNU 2, Luke Whitely 2, Junli Zhang 1, Daniel Hathcoat 2, Geraldine Opena 2, Jackie Rudd 1, Shuyu Liu 1,2
1. Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 6500 W Amarillo Blvd, Amarillo, 79106, Texas, United States
2. Department of Soil and Crop Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, 77843, United States
Corresponding author: Shuyu Liu Email: Shuyu.Liu@ag.tamu.edu
Presenting Author: Yahya Rauf
Abstract
Fusarium head blight (FHB) primarily caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium
graminearum is a very devastating wheat disease causing significant losses
in grain yield and quality. It infects wheat spikes and gradually causes
discoloration and deterioration of grain, and contamination with mycotoxins,
mainly deoxynivalenol (DON). FHB resistance is very complex due to its quantitative
nature of inheritance involving several genes. This study was designed to explore
allelic diversity within the Texas A&M wheat breeding lines for FHB disease
components (severity, incidence, Fhb-index, FDK, and DON) and kernel traits (area,
perimeter, length, width, TKW). A set of 97 and 195 lines from Texas wheat breeding
nurseries in 2024 and 2025, respectively were evaluated for FHB using a
randomized complete block design in College Station, TX. Kernel traits were
collected using the hp Scanjet G4010 photo scanner for image capturing and
GrainScan v3. software for image analysis. Genomic libraries were prepared and
run on Illumina NovaSeq 6000 to generate 150 bp paired end reads. Sequences
were aligned to the IWGSC RefSeq genome assembly v2.1 using the Burrows Wheeler
Aligner for SNP calling. Genomic sequences were filtered at 1% minor allele
frequency and 5% heterozygosity which finally retained 109,323 and 55,051 polymorphic
SNP markers for 2024 and 2025 mapping panels, respectively. To identify significant
genomic regions associated with phenotyping traits, Blink, FarmCPU and MLMM
genome-wide association study models were implemented using the R package GAPIT
version 3.5. Principal component analysis revealed that the first two
components explained 62 to 67% phenotypic variations for Scab2024 and Scab2025
panels, respectively. Seed traits were highly correlated with r values
ranging from 0.60-0.89 in Scab2024 and 0.37-0.94 in Scab2025. For disease
components, INC and SEV had significant correlation (r=0.61), FDK
correlated with seed length, SEV (r=0.32), and INC (r=0.4) in
2024. FDK correlated with seed length and SEV (r=0.26) in 2025. FDK had
significant correlation with DON in both years (r =0.52 and 0.33). Breeding
lines in both panels had high relatedness due to narrow genetic basis and
common pedigrees in the breeding program. Preliminary results revealed several
significant marker-trait associations for DON and other traits. The identified
significant SNPs could reduce DON by 1.7 to 8.8 ppm. Fhb1 gene on
chromosome 3BS is the most common source of resistance but we did not detect through
genome wide markers. Texas wheat breeding line might potentially carry some
unique resistances for FHB which needs further confirmation.
