Fourteen Dutch Mycosphaerella graminicola isolates were studied for their virulence to 22 wheat cultivars in the seedling stage in an experiment set up as a completely randomized block design with three repetitions. Isolate x cultivar interactions were highly significant. Cluster analyses were applied to select three isolates with significantly different virulence characteristics for both disease parameters. These were retested in the seedling stage and used to inoculate two field experiments that were planted according to a split plot design in 1992 and 1995. Overhead inoculations were conducted after flowering to avoid the effects of plant height; hence, these experiments were intended as monocyclic tests for virulence differences between the isolates. Significant isolate x cultivar interactions were detected in each experiment, demonstrating specificity in the wheat-M. graminicola pathosystem in the adult plant stage under field conditions. The reproducibility of the adult plant data was high. Genetic differences among the isolates were additionally demonstrated by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) patterns, which also showed that no significant contamination of the inoculated plots with the natural M. graminicola population had occurred. Rank correlations between seedling and adult plant data were significant for M. graminicola isolates IPO323 and IPO290, but not for isolate IPO001. Hence, evaluation of resistance and virulence may require seedling, as well as adult plant, tests.

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Rhizoctonia solani is a plant pathogenic fungus with a wide host range. Host plant specificity within R. solani was analysed on seedlings grown aseptically on agar, which allowed continuous observation of both the fungus and the whole plant without disturbing the interaction. Symptom development on cauliflower, Arabidopsis, eggplant, tomato and potato by 32 R. solani isolates, belonging to six different anastomosis groups (AGs), was studied. Host plant specificity of isolates, as analysed by similarity clustering, was similar to AG-related host plant specificity as observed in the field, with AG3 isolates (except two avirulent strains) separating from the other isolates. Two R. solani isolates with a reciprocal pathogenicity on cauliflower and tomato were selected for further studies. These showed that in the pathogenic combination, R. solani isolates grew over the plant, adhered and formed infection structures, while in the nonpathogenic combination isolates grew over the plant, but neither adhesion nor the formation of infection structures occurred. From these data, it was concluded that host plant specificity is mediated in the early steps of the infection process.

Triticum dicoccoides, wild emmer wheat. Puccinia striijbrmis, yellow rust, stripe rust of wheat, minor genes . SUMMARY Seven single-plant selections of wild emmer, with temperature-sensitive minor-effect genes for stripe rust resistance, were intercrossed in eight combinations . The resulting progenies were studied for a possible additive gene action .The transgressive segregation towards resistance in F 2 observed in all the combinations indicates that additive gene action for resistance indeed occurs in wild emmer. The common occurrence of this phenomenon in random combinations suggests further that several minor-effect genes are involved .Following selection of the most resistant plants in F 2 , a marked shift towards resistance was noted in F 3 , which demonstrates a positive response to selection . In some instances, additive resistance selected for (in F2) at the high temperature-profile was expressed (in F 3 ) also at the low temperature-profile . This kind of resistance, when utilized in breeding programmes, promises therefore to be effective over a range of temperatures .

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