Effectiveness of marker-based selection for Fusarium head blight resistance in spring wheat

The effect of selection for two donor-QTL from Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistant spring wheat variety Sumai 3 on the reduction of deoxynivalenol (DON) content and FHB index was evaluated in field trials over two years (2008, 2009) following artificial inoculation with Fusarium culmorum. This study was conducted on populations of recombinant inbred lines derived from two crosses, Sumai 3/Swedget and Sumai 3/SG-S 191-01. DON content and FHB index were significantly reduced in both crosses in the genotype classes with two stacked donor QTL on chromosomes 3B and 5A in comparison to genotype classes with no donor QTL. In the cross Sumai 3/Swedget the selection for QTL alleles from 3B and 5A resulted in a 63.4% reduction in DON content, and a 51.8% reduction in the FHB index. Similarly, there was a 35.9% and 31.9% reduction, respectively, in the cross Sumai 3/SG-S 191-01. The single effect of the donor-QTL allele from 3B was significant only in the cross Sumai 3/Swedjet. The presence or absence of awns affected both DON content and FHB index in both populations, but was only significantly in the cross Sumai 3/SG-S 191-01. In this cross the effect of selection for fully awned genotypes was particularly evident on a reduction of both DON and FHB index in classes with neither donor QTL, or the 3B QTL. However, the data indicate that the “awnedness” effect on FHB resistance may be highly variable and is probably greater on reducing FHB symptoms than on DON content. The results confirmed that marker-based introgression of resistance QTLs on chromosomes 3B and 5A in traditional breeding materials can enrich populations for resistance types, but it was also shown that the effect of marker-based selection need not be large in all crosses and a similar effect can probably be reached by indirect selection for some FHB-related traits.