Chromosomal Location of Genes for Resistance to Puccinia striiformis in the Wheat Line TP1295 Selected from the Cross of Soissonais-Desprez with Lemhi

Abstract

Crosses of a wheat line TP1295 with the cultivar Chinese Spring monosomic series were used to locate, on chromosome 1D, a major gene for resistance to isolate WYR 85-22 of race 6E0 of Puccinia striiformis. The gene is designated as Yr25 and is probably present in several of the cultivars currently widely used for differentiating races of this pathogen. The expression of the gene was modified by the environment and by at least one minor gene which may be located on chromosome 6A. In F2 and F3 generations from a cross between TP1295 and euploid Chinese Spring, a wide range of variation in infection type (IT) was observed. This precluded the classification of the plants as either resistant or susceptible, so they were assigned to 6 classes and analyzed by factorial correspondence analysis and non-hierarchical classification. When all F3 plants in a family were fully resistant, like TP1295 itself (IT ;), both Yr25 and the modifying gene were assumed to be present and homozygous. In environments favourable to expression of the gene, families thought to carry Yr25 alone had a distribution of ITs from fully resistant (IT ;) to intermediate (IT 2, rarely 3 or 3+). This F3 analysis indicated that use of IT data alone, in the monosomic analysis, would not reveal the chromosomal location of the genes and that chromosome counting of numerous plants was necessary. As well as indicating the chromosomes carrying the genes for resistance to isolate WYR 85-22, the data showed that plants monosomic for chromosomes 5B and 5D were more resistant than the corresponding disomics, indicating that these chromosomes promote susceptibility and supporting other evidence of the effects of these chromosomes on yellow rust resistance.