Registration of 'Mesa' Russian wheat aphid-resistant winter feed barley

Authors: Mornhinweg, Dolores - Do; HAMMON, ROBERT - Colorado State University; OBERT, DON - Retired ARS Employee

Submitted to: Journal of Plant Registrations
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/8/2016
Publication Date: 4/27/2017
Citation: Mornhinweg, D.W., Hammon, R.W., Obert, D.E. 2017. Registration of 'Mesa' Russian wheat aphid-resistant winter feed barley. Journal of Plant Registrations. 11(2):85-88.

Interpretive Summary: A newly introduced pest in 1986, Russian wheat aphid (RWA) quickly spread throughout the intermountain regions of the Rocky Mountains of the Western U.S. and continues today to be a persistent pest of small grains in Colorado, western Nebraska and Kansas, and southeastern Wyoming. This registration article describes the development process and agronomic attributes of the first RWA-resistant winter barley cultivar, Mesa. Mesa is highly resistant to RWA removing the need for producers to apply economically prohibitive and environmentally destructive pesticides.

Technical Abstract: 'Mesa' (Reg. No., PI 659768), Russian wheat aphid [RWA, Diruaphis noxia (Kurdjumov)]-resistant six-rowed winter feed barley Hordeum vulgare L.) tested as 97BX 43-99A and STARS 1401B, was developed and released by USDA-ARS, Stillwater, OK. Although all crossing, selection, and evaluation was done by the USDA-ARS, Stillwater, OK; Colorado State University assisted by planting yield trails in western Colorado and USDA-ARS Aberdeen, ID, entered Mesa in multi-state elite barley trials. Mesa has the pedigree Schuyler*4/R017. The recurrent parent, 'Schuyler' has the pedigree Hudson/Alpine. R017 is an unadapted Russian wheat aphid-resistant germplasm line selected by the USDA-ARS, Stillwater, OK from CI 10721. R017 has a RWA seedling resistance rating of 2. Mesa is the first RWA-resistant winter barley cultivar.