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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Pullman, Washington » WHGQ » Research » Research Project #440449

Research Project: Management of Fungal Pathogens of Barley in Washington State

Location: Wheat Health, Genetics, and Quality Research

Project Number: 2090-22000-019-005-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jun 1, 2021
End Date: Nov 30, 2025

Objective:
The objectives of this cooperative research are to identify, characterize and manage fungal pathogens that cause foliar diseases and threaten barley production including Puccinia graminis, Pyrenophora teres and Bipolaris sorokiniana; characterize pathogen populations and their virulence on known and deployed barley resistance genes; Identify effective new sources of resistance, and begin the process of introgressing of these resistances into elite barely genotypes.

Approach:
Foliar diseases will be identified and characterized through a combination of field, greenhouse and laboratory studies. The virulence structure of identified pathogens will be characterized by the collection of populations and assays with known barley resistance genes and differential sets. Molecular techniques and genetic analyses will be conducted to map virulence loci, identify candidate virulence effectors and characterize the pathogen population and virulence spectra on deployed resistance genes in barley. The world barley core collections will be screened to identify new sources of genetic resistance and the current molecular marker data available for these lines will be utilized to map resistance via association mapping. The new sources of resistance will be crossed with elite barley germplasm for the development of resistant breeding lines and varieties.