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Consistent detection of QTLs for crown rust resistance in Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.) across environments and phenotyping methods

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Abstract

Crown rust, caused by Puccinia coronata f. sp. lolii, is one of the most important diseases of temperate forage grasses, such as ryegrasses (Lolium spp.), affecting yield and nutritional quality. Therefore, resistance to crown rust is a major goal in ryegrass breeding programmes. In a two-way pseudo-testcross population consisting of 306 Lolium multiflorum individuals, multisite field evaluations as well as alternative methods based on artificial inoculation with natural inoculate in controlled environments were used to identify QTLs controlling resistance to crown rust. Disease scores obtained from glasshouse and leaf segment test (LST) evaluations were highly correlated with scores from a multisite field assessment (r = 0.66 and 0.79, P < 0.01, respectively) and thus confirmed suitability of these methods for crown rust investigations. Moreover, QTL mapping based on a linkage map consisting of 368 amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers revealed similar results across different phenotyping methods. Two major QTLs were consistently detected on linkage group (LG) 1 and LG 2, explaining up to 56% of total phenotypic variance (V p). Nevertheless, differences between position and magnitude of QTLs were observed among individual field locations and suggested the existence of specific local pathogen populations. The present study not only compared QTL results among crown rust evaluation methods and environments, but also identified molecular markers closely linked to previously undescribed QTLs for crown rust resistance in Italian ryegrass with the potential to be applied in marker-assisted forage crop breeding.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the following breeding institutes and companies for performing field experiments and providing crown rust resistance data: Advanta Flevopolder, the Netherlands; DSV Asendorf, Germany; LSA Stuttgart Hohenheim, Germany; NPZ Hohenlieth, Germany and Saatzucht Steinach, Germany. CRCMPB, Australia and NILGS, Japan kindly granted research licences for the use of SSR markers. We further thank A. Schmidt, P. Streckeisen, Y. Häfele and L. Kren for excellent technical support, Prof. Dr. agr. H.F. Utz and Dr. C.-C. Schön, University of Hohenheim for support regarding field trial design, QTL and statistical analyses. The present study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 3100-065417) and kindly supported by grants from the “Bundesministerium für Verbraucherschutz, Ernährung und Landwirtschaft” (BMVEL) and “Gemeinschaft zur Förderung der privaten deutschen Pflanzenzüchtung e.V.” (GFP, grant 01 HS 006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon Research Station ART, Reckenholzstr. 191, 8046, Zurich, Switzerland

    Bruno Studer, Beat Boller, Franco Widmer & Roland Kölliker

  2. State Plant Breeding Institute, University of Hohenheim, 70593, Stuttgart, Germany

    Eva Bauer & Ulrich K. Posselt

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  1. Bruno Studer
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  2. Beat Boller
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  3. Eva Bauer
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  4. Ulrich K. Posselt
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  5. Franco Widmer
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  6. Roland Kölliker
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Correspondence to Roland Kölliker.

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Communicated by T. Lübberstedt.

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122_2007_535_MOESM_ESM.xls

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Studer, B., Boller, B., Bauer, E. et al. Consistent detection of QTLs for crown rust resistance in Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.) across environments and phenotyping methods. Theor Appl Genet 115, 9–17 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-007-0535-z

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