Researchers from Germany’s Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) have tested 500 wheat accessions, including cultivars, gene bank accessions and wild species, for their resistance to wheat dwarf virus (WDV). A subsequent genome-wide association study (GWAS) has raised the possibilities of breeding future WDV-resistant varieties.
The JKI website reports that wild wheat species proved to have a similar susceptibility to WDV as modern cultivars, suggesting that breeding has not caused a loss of resistance genes. More than half of the accessions tested died due to the infection, says JKI, while two Hungarian cultivars described as resistant showed only low quantitative resistance to the virus disease, with infection rates of 21.5% and 34.5%.
However, researchers discovered almost complete resistance in the Russian winter wheat cultivar Fisht with an average of 5.7% of infected plants. Their results have been published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Plant Science.
The GWAS has shed further light on WDV-resistance. “For the first time, we succeeded in identifying quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with low losses in yield after virus infection,” Anne-Kathrin Pfrieme, who is writing her doctoral thesis on this topic at the JKI Institute for Resistance Research and Stress Tolerance, tells the JKI website.
Of the 35 QTL initially identified for WDV resistance, further tests showed that 14 QTL are consistently associated with low yield losses after WDV infection, says JKI. “With the help of genetic markers, these QTL could be crossed into elite wheat lines and are thus a promising tool for generating resistant varieties in the future,” Anne-Kathrin tells the website.
Various breeding companies have been involved in the research, alongside the German Society for the Promotion of Plant Innovation (Gesellschaft zur Förderung von Pflanzeninnovation, GFPi). This is particularly advantageous, says JKI, since the virus cannot be controlled and no insecticide is approved in the European Union to control the transmitting leafhopper, Psammotettix alienus (pictured above).
For more information:
Last update: 24/05/2023 - ENDURE © 2009 - Contact ENDURE - Disclaimer