Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), a major pathogenic fungal disease in
wheat and barley caused by Fusarium
graminearum (Gibberella zeae) has
a major economic impact on wheat and barley production due to the production of
mycotoxins. Breeding for resistance in adapted wheat varieties is not trivial
due to several minor effect alleles identified in QTL studies. To successfully
develop resistance, diagnostic markers for QTLs across the wheat genome need to
be identified to help pyramid promising resistance genes into adapted wheat
varieties in breeding programs. We are developing a Practical Haplotype Graph
(PHG) database coupling phenotypic and genotypic data from a panel of 270 wheat
cultivars from across the US. The objective of identifying novel QTLs and
building a genomic selection (GS) model is underway with one year of field data
evaluated. Preliminary results show significant variability in phenotypic scab
severity, the normalized area under disease progressive curve (AUDPC), and the
severity of Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK) (p-value > 0.05) across breeding
lines, including some more resistant than the moderately resistant control. Additionally,
~15x sequencing data from these lines produced nearly 600,000 variants across
the genome for association analyses and model building. Preliminary results
will be presented and discussed.