Registration of ‘Lowe’, a Two‐Rowed Malting Barley with Enhanced Resistance to Fusarium Head Blight

Abstract

Fusarium head blight (FHB) challenges the malting and brewing industry due to the presence of the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) in infected grain. New barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) cultivars must have improved resistance while still providing producers with robust, high yield. 'Lowe' (Reg. no. CV-369, PI 689750; Canadian Food Inspection Agency Reg. no. 8132; Canadian PBR Cert. No. 5884) is a two-rowed, hulled, spring barley developed for malting use, especially for the craft brewing industry. Lowe has a high level of resistance to FHB, accumulating 50% less DON than 'AC Metcalfe', with levels similar to the most-resistant check, 'Chevron'. Lowe was created using a modified bulk breeding method with the headrow that produced Lowe derived from a F 6 population. It was tested as TR13609 in trials managed by the Prairie Recommending Committee for Oat and Barley from 2013 to 2015. Lowe outyielded the malting checks AC Metcalfe and 'CDC Copeland' in 2 yr of agronomic evaluation. It is a tall cultivar with better lodging resistance than the malting checks. Lowe matures 3 d later than the malting checks. Lowe has excellent properties for malting and brewing, with low protein, high extract, and low b-glucan concentrations in the wort. Lowe is resistant to surface-borne and loose smuts and moderately resistant to scald, spot form of net blotch, and FHB. Lowe combines excellent agronomic, disease, and

Building on a foundation: advances in epidemiology, resistance breeding, and forecasting research for reducing the impact of fusarium head blight in wheat and barley

“…'Conlon', an American tworow cultivar released by North Dakota State University, was not bred specifically for FHB resistance, yet demonstrates moderate resistance. Complementary crosses between elite Canadian breeding lines have resulted in progeny with superior resistance than their parents and the development of moderately resistant cultivars adapted to western Canada, such as 'CDC Mindon', developed at University of Saskatchewan's Crop Development Centre (Rossnagel et al 2008), and 'Lowe', developed at FCDC-AAF (Juskiw et al 2019). It is possible that, through the creation of complementary crosses, further improvements in resistance may be achieved through matching additive effects and/or possible epistatic contributions.…”

Relevant Fusarium Mycotoxins in Malt and Beer

“…New varieties of malting barley resistant to FHB are constantly registered [ 44 , 45 ], with up to 50% less DON accumulated in the kernels compared to a similar non-resistant variety. Nonetheless, Hückelhoven, Hofer, Coleman and Heß (2018) [ 46 ] describe in their review the challenges related to the selection of an FHB-resistant barley being considerably greater compared to wheat due to the high rate of symptomless development of the infection and thus restricting the possibility to select resistant genotypes.…”

Registration of ‘AB Wrangler’, a two‐rowed feed and forage barley with enhanced resistance to Fusarium head blight

“… b ‘Bentley’ (Juskiw, Helm, Oro, Nyachiro, & Salmon, 2009a),‘Lowe’ (Juskiw et al., 2019), ‘CDC Bow’ (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2020c), ‘CDC Copeland’ (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2020d). …”

“…T A B L E 1a Amount of seed (by weight) retained on a screen with slot size of 2.44 mm. b 'Bentley'(Juskiw, Helm, Oro, Nyachiro, & Salmon, 2009a),'Lowe'(Juskiw et al, 2019), 'CDC Bow' (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2020c), 'CDC Copeland' (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2020d).T A B L E 2Biomass yield and quality traits of AB Wrangler (tested as FB484) and the check cultivars from the 2017 and 2018 Western Cooperative Forage Barley Registration Tests…”