PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Milgate, Andrew
AU  - Baxter, Brad
AU  - Simpfendorfer, Steven
AU  - Yang, Nannan
AU  - Orchard, Beverly
AU  - Ovenden, Ben
TI  - Improved breeding for <em>Fusarium pseudograminarium</em> (Fusarium crown rot) using qPCR measurement of infection in multi-species winter cereal experiments
AID  - 10.1101/2022.10.12.512005
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.10.12.512005
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/10/17/2022.10.12.512005.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/10/17/2022.10.12.512005.full
AB  - Fusarium crown rot (FCR) causes significant grain yield loss in winter cereals around the world. Breeding for resistance and/or tolerance to FCR has been slow with relatively limited success. In this study, multi-species experiments were used to demonstrate an improved method to quantify FCR infection levels at plant maturity using qPCR, as well as the genotype yield retention using residual regression deviation. Using qPCR to measure FCR infection allowed a higher degree of resolution between genotypes than traditional visual stem basal browning assessments. The results were consistent across three environments with different levels of disease expression. The improved measure of FCR infection along with genotype yield retention allows for partitioning of both tolerance and partial resistance. Together these methods offer new insights to FCR partial resistance and its relative importance to tolerance in bread wheat and barley. This new approach offers a more robust, cost-effective way to select for both FCR traits within breeding programs.Key message Genetic gain for tolerance and partial resistance against Fusarium crown rot (FCR) in winter cereals has been impeded by laborious and variable visual measures of infection severity. This paper presents results of an improved method to quantify FCR infection that are strongly correlated to yield loss and reveal previously unrecognised partial resistance in barley and wheat varieties.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.