The use of PI 277012-derived Fusarium head blight resistance QTL in winter wheat breeding.

Fusarium head blight (FHB) caused by results in substantial grain yield and quality losses in common wheat ( L.). Genetic resistance is partial but crucial for effective, integrated management of the disease. Host resistance is conditioned by numerous small effect quantitative trait loci (QTL) that are strongly affected by the environment and genetic background. and (PI 277012 is the source for both genes) are two recently discovered FHB resistance QTL that also occur in spring wheat GP80 (PI 277012 derivative). To transfer the PI 277012 resistance from GP80 to hard winter wheat (HWW), GP80 was first crossed with Novus-4. The F hybrid was crossed with SY Monument, following which marker-selected progeny were crossed with, and backcrossed to, ND Noreen. To potential carriers of FHB resistance QTL among the 22 F of the ND Noreen cross, simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, Illumina 90 K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) haplotypes and greenhouse FHB Type II resistance tests were done. Likely homozygotes for and , were selected and backcrossed to ND Noreen. In the BF, 131 plants were evaluated for SNP haplotypes, SSR markers and FHB resistance. Nine BF lines were derived, and their resistance confirmed in a third greenhouse FHB trial. The results suggested that eight lines had higher resistance and were comparable to GP80 with the markers occurring in all eight and the markers occurring in four lines. The eight selections constitute a valuable HWW resistance breeding resource.