Pyramiding into durum and bread wheat fusarium head blight resistance and other useful traits from Thinopyrum ponticum.

Abstract

In recent years, Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) has become a serious problem in wheat cultivation even in areas where it was not previously present, Italy included. The severity of disease impact on grain quality and yield, and the lack of resistant cultivars within adapted germplasm, stimulated worldwide breeding efforts to develop FHB resistant wheats. In order to exploit the available genetic variability of wheat relatives, we used the wild species Thinopyrum ponticum as a source of FHB resistance to be introduced into bread and durum wheats. The ultimate goal is to pyramid the FHB resistance gene(s) with other useful genes already transferred from a different accession of the same species (Lr19+Yp, leaf rust resistance and yellow endosperm pigmentation, respectively). To this aim, suitable polymorphic DNA markers have been identified in the region of interest which facilitate the follow-up of desired alleles in the course of the multi-targeted transfer process.