Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the most important diseases in cereals worldwide. It causes enormous economic damages by yield and quality losses and contaminates the grain with mycotoxins. Apart from agronomic and chemical measures, it is important to choose a resistant variety to reduce the risk of infection to a minimum. The aim of this study was to estimate quantitative-genetic population parameters that are important for optimising breeding programs in rye, triticale, and wheat. Four winter rye, five winter triticale and five winter wheat populations were tested in several field environments by artifical infection and three traits were analysed: symptom rating in all populations, deoxynivalenol (DON) content in four rye and one wheat population and Fusarium exoantigen content in the same wheat population. Between and within the populations significant (P>0.01) genetic variation for these three traits was found. All populations showed a quantitative distribution for FHB resistance and DON content and significant transgressive segregation in both directions were observed in some populations. This indicates an oligo-/polygenic inheritance with mainly additive gene action. Between head blight rating and DON content intermediate coefficients of phenotypic correlation were found. The genotypic correlation coefficients were considerably higher in all instances revealing a tight biological association between the two traits. The difference between phenotypic and genotypic correlation is mainly explained by the highly significant (P>0.01) genotype x environment interaction variance. In this study, the association between the Fusarium exoantigen content and the DON content was high in wheat. In conclusion, experiments should be carried out in several environments. Then, a high indirect selection gain for low DON content can be achieved by selecting for low head blight rating. In a later step, additionally the DON content of the selected progeny should be analysed to maximize selection gain. This could be done directly by an appropriate immunotest or indirectly by analysing the Fusarium exoantigen content. Concerning the predominantly additive gene action it should be feasible to combine different resistance sources and components by recurrent selection with the final aim to increase the resistance in the adapted genepool of rye, triticale, and wheat and to reduce the toxin contamination in the grain.
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Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the most important diseases in cereals worldwide. It causes enormous economic damages by yield and quality losses and contaminates the grain with mycotoxins. Apart from agronomic and chemical measures, it is important to choose a resistant variety to reduce the risk of infection to a minimum. The aim of this study was to estimate quantitative-genetic population parameters that are important for optimising breeding programs in rye, triticale, and wheat. Four w...
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