Pre-Breeding to Combine Diverse Disease Resistance and Agrotype Genes in Hard Winter Wheat

Abstract

The NDSU hard winter wheat (HWW) breeding program aims to develop improved varieties that are better equipped to cope with the environmental and disease challenges of the northern prairies. To achieve this, it is necessary to continually acquire and employ useful disease resistance and adaptation genes from other sources of HWW and hard spring wheat (HSW) germplasm. The first study pursued the transfer of the FHB resistance QTL Qfhb.rwg- 5A.1 and Qfhb.rwg-5A.2 (obtained from HSW PI 277012) through continued backcrosses into the HWW cultivar, ND Noreen, utilizing previously derived cross segregates and markers. A second study used modified single seed descent (SSD) inbreeding with phenotypic and marker selection steps to combine the FHB resistance QTL, Fhb1, and Qfhs.ifa-5A.1 (from HSW CM82036), with good winter hardiness, semi-dwarf plant height, and resistance to leaf, stem, and stripe rust.