Breeding for Fusarium resistance in wheat. Post doctoral fellowship in CIMMYT for Dr. Xinyao He

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) has become a destructive fungal disease of wheat worldwide, leading to great yield losses as well as the accumulation of mycotoxins harmful to humans and animals. The main reasons are reduced tillage, warmer and moister climates during the growing season and susceptible cultivars. Breeding wheat cultivars resistant to FHB is the most economically viable and efficient solution. However it is time-consuming due to the need of accurate phenotyping. Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS) o ffers a new and efficient way to do genotypic selection. The Chinese Sumai 3 and its derivatives are the most popular resistance sources, having provided major resistance QTLs for breeding programs around the world, incl. in CIMMYT and Norwegian wheat bre eding. However, it is unwise and even dangerous to rely exclusively on one source of resistance. To broaden the genetic base for FHB resistance, a CIMMYT DH population carrying non-Sumai 3 resistance will be mapped in this project and molecular markers cl osely linked to major resistance QTLs will be identified. Then, a Norwegian RIL population derived from the same resistance source will be used for the validation of newly identified markers. This will accelerate the introgression of non-Sumai 3 resistanc e into CIMMYT and Norwegian wheat germplasm. In addition, it has recently been shown that both dwarfing genes and anther extrusion may influence FHB resistance, and the two traits will also be tested in this project to seek their relations with FHB resist ance in new genetic and epidemic backgrounds. The project will strengthen ongoing informal research collaboration between UMB and CIMMYT through staff exchange, like provided by the NFR CGIAR programme in the past to both Norwegian investigators. It would allow molecular studies to identify unknown QTLs and molecular markers in wheat populations recently developed in Norway and CIMMYT, and be very beneficial to strengthen collaboration between both institutions.