Sclerotinia Initiative - Resistance

Sclerotinia white mold is an important disease of lentils and peas and a limiting factor to the yield and quality of lentils and peas in the Pacific Northwest. There is little information available about white mold of lentils and peas. Currently no effective measures are available for control of white mold of lentils and peas because some of the cultural practices like long-term rotation and deep plowing used for control of white mold in other crops are not practical in the Pacific Northwest. Management of plant diseases including white mold is more efficient and economical through use of resistant/tolerant cultivars. Resistance to white mold in the commercial cultivars and the core germplasm collections of lentils and peas is basically unknown. It is essential to obtain basic information about resistance sources before we can develop sound approaches for creating breeding lines in lentils and peas with white mold resistance. The objective of this research project is the identification of sources of resistance to white mold in lentils and peas. We have designed field and greenhouse/growth chamber experiments to answer three fundamental questions in searching for resistance sources: 1) Are there any commercial varieties of lentils and peas that are resistant/tolerant to Sclerotinia white mold? 2) Are there any accessions and breeding lines in the core collections of lentils and peas that are resistant/tolerant to Sclerotinia white mold? 3) Is resistance/tolerance of lentils and peas to white mold correlated with any agronomic traits? We propose using repeated field trials in combination with greenhouse/growth chamber screening over a period of three years to search for and identify resistance sources in lentils and peas. Successful completion of the experiments will provide the needed baseline information allowing us to formulate strategies for development of cultivars of lentils and peas that are resistant to Sclerotinia white mold.