Marker assisted breeding for common bunt resistance in new wheat varieties adapted to the Canadian Prairies
Term: 3 years, beginning in 2020
Status: Ongoing
Funding Amount: $67, 200
Lead Researcher(s): Dr. Ron Knox (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Swift Current)
Funding Partners: Western Grains Research Foundation, Alberta Wheat Commission, Agriculture Development Fund
Project Description
Common bunt is a grading factor in CWRS wheat and listed as a priority 1 disease in the registration system. Down grading of infested grain results in a loss in revenue to farmers. Thus, this project focuses on efforts to boost bunt resistance by gene stacking in CWRS wheat, an approach used by plant breeders to assemble target genes of interest from different sources into breeding lines. Though this disease can be controlled using seed treatment, but at a direct cost to the farmer. Previous bunt resistance was dependent on major genes like Bt10 and did not include other quantitative genes or QTL. Hence, this project will build upon findings of previous research studies on mapping of common bunt resistance and molecular markers developed at AAFC and other institutions to stack the resistant genes in the desirable wheat line. The objectives of this project are: (1) to generate crosses of elite bunt susceptible CWRS lines with bunt resistance sources for marker assisted selection; (2) to deploy breeder friendly markers for bunt resistance in marker assisted selection of breeding lines, and (3) to improve on and validate molecular markers for future use.