Based on a preliminary screening of a collection of cruciferous crops, such as oilseed rape {Brassica napus L. ssp. oieifera Metzg.), oil radish {Raphanus sativus L. ssp. oleiferus DC), and yellow mustard {Sinapis alba L.), some plants within the oil radish varieties showed resistance to the root-knot nematodes Meloidogyne hapla Chitwood and M. incognita (Kofoid & White) Chitwood. Resistance tests of S, progeny of these selected genotypes revealed a quantitative nature of resistance to M. hapla. Only a few resistant individuals were found, but a significant effect of selection was observed. In contrast, the progenies of plants resistant to M. incognita showed a very low number of egg masses, suggesting that this resistance may be conferred by dominant major gene(s). The results indicate that resistance of oil radish to root-knot nematodes may be effective and may thus provide new possibilities for the management of M. hapla and M. incognita.In addition to the sugar beet cyst nematode {Heterodera schachtii Schmidt) the root-knot nematodes Meloidogyne hapla Chitwood and M. incognita (Kofoid & White) Chitwood may cause severe damage to sugar beet {Beta vulgaris L.) (Cook 1993). The use of nematicides is now limited and may not be allowed in the future because of the environmental and toxicological risks. To date, only one partially resistant commercial cultivar is available in sugar beet; however, resistance to H. schachtii is well known in cruciferous plant species, particularly in oil radish {Raphanus sativus L. ssp. oleiferus DC.) and Sinapis alba L. (Baukloh 1976, Thierfelder and. The use of resistant yellow mustard {S. alba) and R. sativus cultivars as green manure has been shown to be beneficial in reducing H. schachtii population densities in intensive sugar beet cropping systems (Schlang 1991), but within these species no cultivars with resistance to M./ifl/j/fl and M. mco^n2f(3 -1 Ul .o J x^-u man T» u^ ioo^^ TV, lo,, are available (Sasser and Kirby 1979, Roberts 1992). The management of H. schachtii and of these root-knot nematodes in crop rotations, including crucifers, requires the identification of new sources of resistance in the Brassicaceae.The screening of a collection of cruciferous species and cultivars showed that some plants derived from H. schachtii-resistant oil radish genotypes were also resistant to M. hapla and M. incognita, respectively (Bunte 1995, Btinte and Friedt 1995). Repeated tests by using a number of clones of these plants confirmed the screening results and indicated that the wide variation in the number of galls and egg masses found in oil radish was primarily determined genetically.The experiments presented here were designed to gather more information on the genetic variation for resistance to M. hapla and M. incognita in oil radish as a typical cross-breeding crop, inbred hnes from selected genotypes, together with their parpopulations, were tested for resistance.
Materials and Methodŝpreliminary screening (Biinte 1995) revealed that in contrast to some cultivars of oilseed r...