Increasing Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) disease on barley caused by changes in climate and maize cultivation practices is placing the Nation's high-quality malt supply at risk of being inadequate. At the same time, the Independent Craft Brewing Movement, which is undergoing exponential growth, is seeking locally-produced barley. These trends are upending traditional systems. Therefore, breeders across North America must develop portfolios of locally-adapted barley varieties to meet the needs of different end users, each variety resistant to FHB. The goal of this project are to enhance and increase the number of winter barley varieties possessing resistance to Fusarium head blight developed by U.S. public breeding programs. Key objectives of this project are to: 1) coordinate a North American Barley Scab Evaluation Nursery (NABSEN) for winter barley, in which North American winter barley breeders submit their best lines for testing, and 2) identify lines in the Ohio breeding program exhibiting FHB resistance in the forms of low DON accumulation and low disease incidence, and 3) utilize modern breeding and molecular marker technologies to efficiently and rapidly introgress those resistances into elite lines for varietal release to farmers.

Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 59-0206-0-174, and award number AWD-112740. This is a cooperative project with the U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.