Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.2
3.7
Journals
Agronomy
Special Issues
Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance
share announcement

Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Breeding and Genetics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2020) | Viewed by 20897

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Morten Lillemo

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
Faculty of Biosciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432 Ås, Norway
Interests: plant genetics; plant breeding; QTL mapping; resistance breeding; molecular genetics; host-pathogen interactions; powdery mildew control; pre-harvest sprouting resistance; waterlogging tolerance; plant disease detection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Åsmund Bjørnstad

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Plant Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, IHA/CIGENE, P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432 Ås, Norway
Interests: plant pathology; plant breeding

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the most hazardous diseases on small-grain cereals. Since the heavy epidemics in the US Midwest in the 1990s, improvement of FHB resistance and lowering of the mycotoxin contamination has been high on the breeding agenda. Recent changes in climate and cropping systems have made FHB epidemics more frequent and severe in other production areas with humid climates, such as Europe, South America or the Yangtze River basin.  Strict toxin limits have also made the issues more pressing. Main results from the research have been that resistance is partial and quantitative, but general towards species and races of the fungi. Large numbers of QTL have been identified in wheat and barley, and metastudies have provided the identification of important loci like e.g. Fhb1 to Fhb5 in wheat. Three candidate loci have been found for the former, but the causal factor is still open. In other species, like oat, the studies are few, and comparative genomics across species are none. Developments from the past decade are the importance of flowering biology (avoidance),  the potentials for genomic selection and more accurate phenotyping all hold promise for important savings in breeding new cultivars. New studies in these and emerging fields are welcome for this special issue.

Dr. Morten Lillemo
Prof. Dr. Åsmund Bjørnstad
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Fusarium head blight (FHB)
  • genetics of resistance
  • wheat
  • barley
  • oats

Published Papers (7 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

19 pages, 1193 KiB  
Article
Resistance to Fusarium Head Blight, Kernel Damage, and Concentration of Fusarium Mycotoxins in Grain of Winter Triticale (x Triticosecale Wittmack) Lines
by Tomasz Góral, Halina Wiśniewska, Piotr Ochodzki, Adriana Twardawska and Dorota Walentyn-Góral
Agronomy 2021, 11(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11010016 - 23 Dec 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2782
Abstract
Fusarium head blight (FHB) can cause contamination of cereal grain with mycotoxins. Triticale is also infected with FHB; however, it is more resistant than wheat to head infection. The aim of this study was to identify triticale lines that combine low head infection [...] Read more.
Fusarium head blight (FHB) can cause contamination of cereal grain with mycotoxins. Triticale is also infected with FHB; however, it is more resistant than wheat to head infection. The aim of this study was to identify triticale lines that combine low head infection with low toxin contamination. Resistance to FHB of 15 winter triticale and three winter wheat lines was evaluated over a three-year experiment established in two locations. At the anthesis stage, heads were inoculated with Fusarium culmorum isolates. The FHB index was scored and the percentage of Fusarium-damaged kernels (FDKs) assessed. The grain was analysed for type B trichothecenes (deoxynivalenol and derivatives, nivalenol) and zearalenone content. The average FHB index was 10.7%. The proportion of FDK was 18.1% (weight) and 21.6% (number). An average content of deoxynivalenol amounted to 7.258 mg/kg and nivalenol to 5.267 mg/kg. In total, it was 12.788 mg/kg of type B trichothecenes. The zearalenone content in the grain was 0.805 mg/kg. Relationships between FHB index, FDK, and mycotoxin contents were statistically significant for triticale lines; however, they were stronger for FDK versus mycotoxins. Triticale lines combing all types of FHB resistance were found, however the most resistant ones were less resistant that wheat lines with the Fhb1 gene. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

16 pages, 776 KiB  
Article
Dissecting the Contribution of Environmental Influences, Plant Phenology, and Disease Resistance to Improving Genomic Predictions for Fusarium Head Blight Resistance in Wheat
by Jose Moreno-Amores, Sebastian Michel, Franziska Löschenberger and Hermann Buerstmayr
Agronomy 2020, 10(12), 2008; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10122008 - 20 Dec 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2323
Abstract
Environmental factors like temperature and humidity are presumed to greatly influence Fusarium head blight FHB infections in wheat. Anther retention AR, on the other hand, is a morphologically neutral trait that shares a common genetic basis with FHB resistance. In this study, our [...] Read more.
Environmental factors like temperature and humidity are presumed to greatly influence Fusarium head blight FHB infections in wheat. Anther retention AR, on the other hand, is a morphologically neutral trait that shares a common genetic basis with FHB resistance. In this study, our aims were to: (i) Evaluate two types of corrections of FHB severity scores, namely method-1 via linear regression on flowering time (FT), and method-2 via a best-subset multiple linear regression analysis comprising FT plus accumulated thermal time variables; and (ii) assess the performance of multi-trait genomic selection (MT.GS) models for FHB severity assisted by AR. The forward prediction scenarios where GS models were trained with data from the previous years revealed average prediction accuracies (PA) of 0.28, 0.33, and 0.36 for FHB severity scores that were uncorrected or corrected by method-1 and method-2, respectively. FHB severity scores free from the influences of both environment and phenology seemed to be the most efficient trait to be predicted across different seasons. Average PA increments up to 1.9-fold were furthermore obtained for the MT.GS models, evidencing the feasibility of using AR as an assisting trait to improve the genomic selection of FHB resistance breeding lines. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 2862 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Genetic Factors Defining Head Blight Resistance in an Old Hungarian Wheat Variety-Based Mapping Population
by Emese Varga-László, Katalin Puskás, Balázs Varga, Zsuzsanna Farkas, Ottó Veisz and Gyula Vida
Agronomy 2020, 10(8), 1128; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10081128 - 03 Aug 2020
Viewed by 1967
Abstract
One of the most important limiting factors of high-quality wheat production is Fusarium head blight infection. The various Fusarium species not only may cause severe yield loss but—due to toxin production—the grains also might become unsuitable for animal and human nutrition. In the [...] Read more.
One of the most important limiting factors of high-quality wheat production is Fusarium head blight infection. The various Fusarium species not only may cause severe yield loss but—due to toxin production—the grains also might become unsuitable for animal and human nutrition. In the present research, our aim was to examine the Fusarium resistance of a special mapping population (’BKT9086-95/Mv Magvas’) and identify the genetic factors and chromosome regions determining the tolerance to Fusarium culmorum and Fusarium graminearum. The connection between the genetic background and the Fusarium head blight sensitivity was confirmed by the analysis of variance in the case of three markers, among which the co-dominant pattern of the gtac2 and gtac3 amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers might indicate a marker development possibility. Consistently expressed quantitative trait loci (QTLs) were identified on the chromosomes 2A, 2B, 2D, 5A, and 7A. Loci linked to resistance were identified on 11 chromosomes. During the investigation of phenological and morphological traits (heading date, plant height, ear compactness) influencing the head blight resistance and the location of the resistance QTLs, the total overlap was found in the case of the region identified on chromosome 2D and partial overlap on chromosomes 2A and 2B. Whereas 5A may be a rare allelic variant of a novel QTL. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 6720 KiB  
Article
Optimizing Training Population Size and Content to Improve Prediction Accuracy of FHB-Related Traits in Wheat
by Emmanuel Adeyemo, Prabin Bajgain, Emily Conley, Ahmad H. Sallam and James A. Anderson
Agronomy 2020, 10(4), 543; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10040543 - 09 Apr 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2952
Abstract
Genomic selection combines phenotypic and molecular marker data from a training population to predict the genotypic values of untested lines. It can improve breeding efficiency as large pools of untested lines can be evaluated for selection. Training population (TP) composition is one of [...] Read more.
Genomic selection combines phenotypic and molecular marker data from a training population to predict the genotypic values of untested lines. It can improve breeding efficiency as large pools of untested lines can be evaluated for selection. Training population (TP) composition is one of the most important factors affecting the accuracy of genomic prediction. The University of Minnesota wheat breeding program implements genomic selection at the F5 stage for Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance. This study used field data for FHB resistance in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) to investigate the use of small-size TPs designed with and without stratified sampling for three FHB traits in three different F5 populations (TP17, TP18, and TP19). We also compared the accuracies of these two TP design methods with the accuracy obtained from a large size TP. Lastly, we evaluated the impact on trait predictions when the parents of F5 lines were included in the TP. We found that the small size TP selected randomly, without stratification, had the lowest predictive ability across the three F5 populations and across the three traits. This trend was statistically significant (p = 0.05) for all three traits in TP17 and two traits in TP18. Designing a small-size TP by stratified sampling led to a higher accuracy than a large-size TP in most traits across TP18 and TP19; this is because stratified sampling allowed the selection of a small set of closely related lines. We also observed that the addition of parental lines to the TP and evaluating the TP in two replications led to an increase in predictive abilities in most cases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 1419 KiB  
Article
Variation in Anther Extrusion and Its Impact on Fusarium Head Blight and Deoxynivalenol Content in Oat (Avena sativa L.)
by Selamawit Tekle, Sissela Stråbø Schofer, Xinyao He, Yanhong Dong and Åsmund Bjørnstad
Agronomy 2020, 10(3), 354; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10030354 - 04 Mar 2020
Viewed by 2137
Abstract
Variation and inheritance of anther extrusion and its effects on Fusarium head blight were studied. On a 0 to 9 scale, variation ranged from 1 to 6 in a North American oat panel and from 0 to 8 in a Nordic population. The [...] Read more.
Variation and inheritance of anther extrusion and its effects on Fusarium head blight were studied. On a 0 to 9 scale, variation ranged from 1 to 6 in a North American oat panel and from 0 to 8 in a Nordic population. The inheritance was studied in two recombinant inbred line populations (Fiia × Stormogul and Svea × Stormogul). Fiia and Svea are recent white-seeded cultivars with low to medium anther extrusion, while Stormogul is an old black-seeded cultivar with high anther extrusion. Highly significant transgressive segregations and high heritabilities were observed (h2 = 0.91 in Fiia × Stormogul and h2 = 0.83 in Svea × Stormogul). Another extrusion was negatively correlated with Fusarium head blight and deoxynivalenol in spawn-inoculated field experiments, but significantly only in Fiia × Stormogul where the range in resistance was widest. Correlations were reversed in spray-inoculated greenhouse experiments, apparently spraying open florets defeated the avoidance mechanism. Anther extrusion may help oat avoid Fusarium infection in the field, but the genetic variance is inadequate and high anther extrusion is rare in modern genepools. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 2303 KiB  
Article
Genome-wide Association Study and Genomic Prediction for Fusarium graminearum Resistance Traits in Nordic Oat (Avena sativa L.)
by Hanna Haikka, Outi Manninen, Juho Hautsalo, Leena Pietilä, Marja Jalli and Merja Veteläinen
Agronomy 2020, 10(2), 174; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10020174 - 25 Jan 2020
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 4087
Abstract
Fusarium head blight (FHB) and the accumulation of deoxynivalenol (DON) mycotoxin induced by Fusarium graminearum and other Fusarium fungi cause serious problems for oat production in the Nordic region (Scandinavia, Fennoscandia). Besides toxin accumulation, FHB causes reduction in grain yield and in germination [...] Read more.
Fusarium head blight (FHB) and the accumulation of deoxynivalenol (DON) mycotoxin induced by Fusarium graminearum and other Fusarium fungi cause serious problems for oat production in the Nordic region (Scandinavia, Fennoscandia). Besides toxin accumulation, FHB causes reduction in grain yield and in germination capacity. Here, genomic approaches for accelerating breeding efforts against FHB and DON accumulation were studied. Resistance-related traits included DON content, F. graminearum DNA (relative to oat DNA) content (qFUSG) measured with real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), Fusarium-infected kernels (FIKs) and germination capacity (GC). Plant germplasm used in the study consisted of mostly breeding lines, and additionally, a few cultivars and exotic accessions. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) and genomic prediction, enabling genomic selection (GS) on the resistance-related and collected agronomic traits, were performed. Considerable genetic correlations between resistance-related traits were observed: DON content had a positive correlation (0.60) with qFUSG and a negative correlation (−0.63) with germination capacity. With the material in hand, we were not able to find any significant associations between markers and resistance-related traits. On the other hand, in genomic prediction, some resistance-related traits showed favorable accuracy in fivefold cross-validation (GC = 0.57). Genomic prediction is a promising method and genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) generated for germination capacity are applicable in oat breeding programs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 903 KiB  
Article
Anther Extrusion and Its Association with Fusarium Head Blight in CIMMYT Wheat Germplasm
by Kaijie Xu, Xinyao He, Susanne Dreisigacker, Zhonghu He and Pawan K. Singh
Agronomy 2020, 10(1), 47; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10010047 - 28 Dec 2019
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 4014
Abstract
Pronounced anther extrusion (AE) is associated with field resistance to Fusarium head blight (FHB), one of the most devastating diseases of wheat globally. In this study, two recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations were used to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for AE and [...] Read more.
Pronounced anther extrusion (AE) is associated with field resistance to Fusarium head blight (FHB), one of the most devastating diseases of wheat globally. In this study, two recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations were used to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for AE and field FHB resistance and to investigate the association of both traits at the genetic level. Furthermore, two panels of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) wheat breeding lines were evaluated to describe the phenotypic association between the two traits in detail. Highly significant negative correlation was identified between AE and FHB severity in the two populations and the two panels, with r-values ranging from 0.55 to 0.74. QTL analysis in the two RIL populations identified 12 QTL for AE and nine for FHB resistance, of which five QTL located on chromosomes 3BL, 4BS, 4DS, 5AL, and 5BL were associated with both AE and FHB, collectively explaining over 50% of phenotypic variation for FHB. The QTL on chromosomes 4BS, 4DS, 5AL, and 5BL were closely linked to Rht-B1, Rht-D1, Vrn-A1, and Vrn-B1 genes, respectively. In conclusion, AE is closely related to field FHB resistance and could be used as a morphological marker in wheat breeding for field FHB resistance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Breeding Healthy Cereals: Genetic Improvement of Fusarium Resistance)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-7
Back to TopTop