Staying ahead of ever evolving cereal pathogens: management by early detection and genetic host resistance
Term: 4 years, beginning in 2021
Status: Ongoing
Funding Amount: $405,087.50
Lead Researcher(s): Dr. Gurcharn Singh Brar (University of British Columbia)
Funding Partners: Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC), Saskatchewan Barley Commission (SaskBarley)
Project Description
Foliar pathogens can cause significant yield and quality loss in cereal crops in conducive growing seasons. In western Canada, stripe rust is an emerging threat to wheat production and breeders have started to breed for resistance relatively recently. Rust pathogens evolve rapidly to gain virulence and defeat host resistance over a short time period which makes it imperative for researchers to keep up with identification of new resistance genes. In addition, it is also imperative to monitor pathogen populations on a regular basis to identify the most recent races and genetic lineages that can threaten current cultivars. Similarly, tan spot is another important wheat disease that can cause losses in certain years, particularly in warmer prairie regions. In barley, net blotch is an economically important disease across western Canada and the causal pathogen's virulence and prevalence is increasing over time. The current proposal targets all three aforementioned diseases of wheat and barley for characterization of the pathogen populations as well as identification of novel sources of resistance. The ultimate goal of the proposal is to generate information for wheat geneticists and breeders in western Canada, which will help them breed for resistance.