Susceptibility to <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fusarium </Emphasis>head blight is associated with the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rht-D1b</Emphasis> semi-dwarfing allele in wheat
(1) Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Colney Lane, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK;(2) Present address: National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), Huntington Road, Cambridge, CB3 0LE, UK
Abstract:
Fusarium head blight (FHB) is an important disease of wheat worldwide. The cultivar Spark is more resistant than most other UK winter
wheat varieties but the genetic basis for this is not known. A mapping population from a cross between Spark and the FHB susceptible
variety Rialto was used to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with resistance. QTL analysis across environments
revealed nine QTL for FHB resistance and four QTL for plant height (PH). One FHB QTL was coincident with the Rht-1D locus and accounted for up to 51% of the phenotypic variance. The enhanced FHB susceptibility associated with Rht-D1b is not an effect of PH per se as other QTL for height segregating in this population have no influence on susceptibility.
Experiments with near-isogenic lines supported the association between susceptibility and the Rht-D1b allele conferring the semi-dwarf habit. Our results demonstrate that lines carrying the Rht-1Db semi-dwarfing allele are compromised in resistance to initial infection (type I resistance) while being unaffected in resistance
to spread within the spike (type II resistance).