Breeding for Fusarium head blight resistance in wheat—Progress and challenges

Abstract

Fusarium head blight is among the most extensively studied fungal diseases of wheat and other small grain cereals due to its impact on yield and quality, but particularly due to its potential to produce mycotoxins, which are harmful to humans and animals. Since our last comprehensive review on QTL mapping and marker‐assisted selection for FHB resistance in wheat in 2009, numerous studies have been conducted to identify, validate or fine‐map resistance QTL. The main aim of this review is to update and summarize findings on FHB resistance breeding of wheat published during the last decade. Furthermore, we compiled a user‐friendly table listing FHB resistance QTL data providing a valuable resource for further FHB resistance research. The role of morphological and phenological traits on FHB resistance and possible consequences for resistance breeding are discussed. This review concentrates current knowledge on breeding for FHB resistance and suggests strategies to enhance resistance by deploying molecular breeding methods, including marker‐assisted and genomic selection.

Fusarium Head Blight and Rust Diseases in Soft Red Winter Wheat in the Southeast United States: State of the Art, Challenges and Future Perspective for Breeding

“…Sumai 3 is the most widely used donor parent to deploy the major effect QTL Fhb1 in several wheat breeding programs throughout the world (Zhu et al, 2019). While Sumai 3 has been extensively used in North America, other regions are either relying on different sources of Fhb1 such as Shinchunaga in Japan and Norin 129 and Nigmai 9 in China or even dropping Fhb1 due to preferential selection for the stem rust gene Sr2 in International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as both of these genes are linked in repulsion (Buerstmayr et al, 2019). Besides Sumai 3, novel sources of FHB resistance from several other Asian cultivars or landraces such as Chokwang conferring type II resistance from Korea and Wangshuibai, Nyu-Bai and Nobeokabozu and their descendants CM-82036 and Ning7840 from China are widely used in US wheat breeding programs (Yang et al, 2005;Buerstmayr et al, 2009;Buerstmayr et al, 2014;Li et al, 2016b;Buerstmayr et al, 2019).…”

“…While Sumai 3 has been extensively used in North America, other regions are either relying on different sources of Fhb1 such as Shinchunaga in Japan and Norin 129 and Nigmai 9 in China or even dropping Fhb1 due to preferential selection for the stem rust gene Sr2 in International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as both of these genes are linked in repulsion (Buerstmayr et al, 2019). Besides Sumai 3, novel sources of FHB resistance from several other Asian cultivars or landraces such as Chokwang conferring type II resistance from Korea and Wangshuibai, Nyu-Bai and Nobeokabozu and their descendants CM-82036 and Ning7840 from China are widely used in US wheat breeding programs (Yang et al, 2005;Buerstmayr et al, 2009;Buerstmayr et al, 2014;Li et al, 2016b;Buerstmayr et al, 2019). Before the introduction of Sumai 3, US wheat breeding programs primarily used type I resistance sourced from Brazilian donor cultivar Frontana with stable QTL reported on chromosomes 3AL and 5A (Steiner et al, 2004;Buerstmayr et al, 2009).…”

“…In addition, wheat relatives including wild emmer (T. dicoccoides) were also successfully used in hard red spring wheat (HRSW) to release several adapted cultivars including Steele-ND (Mergoum et al, 2005). Nevertheless, the occurrence of Fhb2 and Fhb5 QTLs in Sumai 3 in addition to Fhb1 has made this spring wheat cultivar a universal donor in FHB resistance breeding (Buerstmayr et al, 2019).…”

“…With the rapid advancements in genotyping along with reduced costs, it has become a routine approach to detect QTL associated with disease resistance mostly using conventional biparental QTL mapping (Buerstmayr et al, 2019;ElDoliefy et al, 2020;Ma et al, 2020). Since the first QTL mapping studies conducted independently by Waldron et al (1999) and Bai et al (1999), almost every wheat breeding program has integrated QTL mapping for FHB resistance with other important agronomic and quality traits ( Figure 3).…”

“…The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has restricted DON levels below 1 ppm for finished wheat products such as flour and bran consumed by human and 5-10 ppm for all livestock feed (FDA, 2010). Type-B trichothecenes, such as DON, are acutely phytotoxic and can act as virulence factors on a sensitive host maintaining positive relationship with FHB severity as observed across several studies (O'Donnell et al, 2000;Lemmens et al, 2005;Buerstmayr et al, 2019). Nevertheless, Cowger and Arellano (2010) observed that asymptomatic wheat field with low infected grain might also constitute higher DON due to late infection and rainfall immediately after anthesis.…”