Identification of Fusarium head blight sources of resistance and associated QTLs in historical and modern Canadian spring wheat

Kassa Semagn; Maria Antonia Henriquez; Muhammad Iqbal; Anita L Brûlé-Babel; Klaus Strenzke; Izabela Ciechanowska; Alireza Navabi; Amidou N'Diaye; Curtis Pozniak; Dean Spaner

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1190358

Identification of Fusarium head blight sources of resistance and associated QTLs in historical and modern Canadian spring wheat

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Aug 23:14:1190358. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1190358. eCollection 2023.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Agricultural, Food, and Nutritional Science, 4-10 Agriculture-Forestry Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
² Morden Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Morden, MB, Canada.
³ Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
⁴ Department of Plant Agriculture, Crop Science Building, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.
⁵ Crop Development Centre and Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.

Abstract

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one the most globally destructive fungal diseases in wheat and other small grains, causing a reduction in grain yield by 10-70%. The present study was conducted in a panel of historical and modern Canadian spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) varieties and lines to identify new sources of FHB resistance and map associated quantitative trait loci (QTLs). We evaluated 249 varieties and lines for reaction to disease incidence, severity, and visual rating index (VRI) in seven environments by artificially spraying a mixture of four Fusarium graminearum isolates. A subset of 198 them were genotyped with the Wheat 90K iSelect single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) array. Genome-wide association mapping performed on the overall best linear unbiased estimators (BLUE) computed from all seven environments and the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) RefSeq v2.0 physical map of 26,449 polymorphic SNPs out of the 90K identified sixteen FHB resistance QTLs that individually accounted for 5.7-10.2% of the phenotypic variance. The positions of two of the FHB resistance QTLs overlapped with plant height and flowering time QTLs. Four of the QTLs (QFhb.dms-3B.1, QFhb.dms-5A.5, QFhb.dms-5A.7, and QFhb.dms-6A.4) were simultaneously associated with disease incidence, severity, and VRI, which accounted for 27.0-33.2% of the total phenotypic variance in the combined environments. Three of the QTLs (QFhb.dms-2A.2, QFhb.dms-2D.2, and QFhb.dms-5B.8) were associated with both incidence and VRI and accounted for 20.5-22.1% of the total phenotypic variance. In comparison with the VRI of the checks, we identified four highly resistant and thirty-three moderately resistant lines and varieties. The new FHB sources of resistance and the physical map of the associated QTLs would provide wheat breeders valuable information towards their efforts in developing improved varieties in western Canada.

Keywords: Fusarium graminearum; Western Canada; association mapping; diversity panel; international wheat genome sequencing consortium; physical map.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by grants to the University of Alberta wheat breeding program from the Alberta Crop Industry Development Fund (ACIDF), Canadian Wheat Research Coalition (Alberta Wheat Commission, Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission, and Manitoba Crop Alliance), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery and Collaborative Grant, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Western Grains Research Foundation Endowment Fund (WGRF), Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR), and Core Program Check-off funds to DS. The FHB evaluation at the University of Manitoba was financed by the Western Grains Research Foundation Endowment check-off fund to AB-B.