Chinese wheat landrace Anyuehong (AYH) has displayed high levels of stable adult plant resistance (APR) to stripe rust for >15 years. To identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for stripe rust resistance in AYH, a set of 110 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) was developed from a cross between AYH and susceptible cultivar Taichung 29. The parents and RILs were evaluated for final disease severity (FDS) in six field tests with a mixture of predominant Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici races at the adult plant stage and genotyped via the wheat 55K single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array to construct a genetic map with 1,143 SNP markers. Three QTLs, designated as QYr.AYH-1AS, QYr.AYH-5BL, and QYr.AYH-7DS, were mapped on chromosome 1AS, 5BL, and 7DS, respectively. RILs combining three QTLs showed significantly lower FDS compared with the lines in other combinations. Of them, QYr.AYH-5BL and QYr.AYH-7DS were stably detected in all environments, explaining 13.6 to 21.4% and 17.6 to 33.6% of phenotypic variation, respectively. Compared with previous studies, QYr.AYH-5BL may be a new QTL, whereas QYr.AYH-7DS may be Yr18. Haplotype analysis revealed that QYr.AYH-5BL is probably present in 6.2% of the 323 surveyed Chinese wheat landraces. The kompetitive allele specific PCR (KASP) markers for QYr.AYH-5BL were developed by the linked SNP markers to successfully confirm the effects of the QTL in a validation population derived from a residual heterozygous line and were further assessed in 38 Chinese wheat landraces and 92 cultivars. Our results indicated that QYr.AYH-5BL with linked KASP markers has potential value for marker-assisted selection to improve stripe rust resistance in breeding programs.
Keywords: Chinese wheat landrace; QTL mapping; disease control and pest management; disease resistance; durable resistance; genetics; kompetitive allele specific PCR (KASP); yellow rust.