The development of Fusarium head blight (FHB)-resistant winter wheat cultivars using the gene Fhb1 has been conducted in northern China. Sumai 3, a Chinese FHB-resistant spring wheat cultivar, carries three FHB resistance genes: Fhb1, Fhb2 and Fhb5. To better use these genes for increasing FHB resistance in northern China, it is necessary to elucidate the pyramiding effects of Fhb1, Fhb2 and Fhb5 in winter wheat backgrounds. Eight gene combinations involving Fhb1, Fhb2 and Fhb5 were identified in a double haploid (DH) population, and the effects on FHB resistance were evaluated in six tests. At the single gene level, Fhb1 was more efficient than the other two genes in single-floret inoculation tests, whereas Fhb5 showed better resistance than Fhb1 and Fhb2 under a natural infection test. Pyramiding Fhb1, Fhb2 and Fhb5 showed better FHB resistance than the other gene combinations. Forty-nine DH lines showing consistently better resistance than the moderately susceptible control Huaimai 20 in multiple tests were evaluated for main agronomic traits, and no difference in grain yield was found between the mean values of DH lines and the recipient parents Lunxuan 136 and Lunxuan 6, which are higher than those of recipient parent Zhoumai 16 and the donor parent Sumai 3 (p < 0.05). Based on the phenotypic and genomic composition analyses, five promising DH lines fully combined the FHB resistance of donor Sumai 3 and the elite agronomic traits from the recipient parents. This study elucidates the pyramiding effects of three FHB resistance genes and that the promising DH lines with resistance to FHB can be directly applied in wheat production or as parents in winter wheat breeding programs.

Winter frost has been considered the primary limiting factor in wheat production. Shimai 12 is an elite wheat cultivar grown in central and southern Hebei province of China, but sensitive to winter frost. In this study, the winter frost tolerant cultivar Lunxuan 103 was bred by introducing the recessive allele vrn-D1 from winter wheat Shijiazhuang 8 (frost tolerance) into Shimai 12 using marker-assisted selection (MAS). Different from Shimai 12, Lunxuan 103 exhibited a winter growth habit with strong winter frost tolerance. In the Shimai 12 × Shijiazhuang 8 population, the winter progenies (vrn-D1vrn-D1) had significantly lower winter-killed seedling/tiller rates than spring progenies (Vrn-D1aVrn-D1a), and the consistent result was observed in an association population. Winter frost damage caused a significant decrease in grain yield and spike number/m2 in Shimai 12, but not in Lunxuan 103 and Shijiazhuang 8. The time-course expression analysis showed that the transcript accumulation levels of the cold-responsive genes were higher in Lunxuan 103 and Shijiazhuang 8 than in Shimai 12. Lunxuan 103 possessed the same alleles as its parents in the loci for plant height, vernalization, and photoperiod, except for the vernalization gene Vrn-D1. An analysis of genomic composition showed that the two parents contributed similar proportions of genetic compositions to Lunxuan 103. This study provides an example of the improvement of winter frost tolerance by introducing the recessive vernalization gene in bread wheat.