Wheat cultivar Express has durable, high-temperature adult-plant (HTAP) resistance to stripe rust (
Puccinia striiformis f. sp.
tritici). To elucidate the genetic basis of the resistance, Express was crossed with ‘Avocet Susceptible’ (AVS). A mapping population
of 146 F
5 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) was developed using single-seed descent. The RILs were evaluated at two sites near Pullman
in eastern Washington and one site near Mount Vernon in western Washington in 2005, and were evaluated near Pullman in 2006
under natural stripe rust infection of predominant races virulent on seedlings of Express. Infection type (IT) and disease
severity (DS) were recorded three times for each line during each growing season. The DS data were used to calculate relative
area under the disease progress curve (rAUDPC) values. Both IT and rAUDPC data showed continuous distributions, indicating
that the Express HTAP resistance was controlled by quantitative trait loci (QTL). Resistance gene analog polymorphism (RGAP)
and simple sequence repeat (SSR) techniques were used to map the HTAP resistance QTL. Three QTL were detected with significant
additive effects, explaining 49.5–69.6% of the phenotypic variation for rAUDPC. Two of the QTL explained 30.8–42.7% of the
phenotypic variation for IT. The three QTL were mapped to wheat chromosomes 6AS, 3BL and 1BL, and were designated as
QYrex.wgp-6AS,
QYrex.wgp-3BL and
QYrex.wgp-1BL, respectively.
QYrex.wgp-6AS and
QYrex.wgp-3BL, which had higher effects than
QYrex.wgp-1BL, were different from previously reported QTL/genes for adult-plant resistance. Markers
Xgwm334–Xwgp56 and
Xgwm299–Xwgp66 flanking the two major QTL were highly polymorphic in various wheat genotypes, suggesting that these markers are useful in
marker-assisted selection.
Communicated by B. Keller.