Identification of Two New QTL for FHB Resistance in a Hard Red Spring Wheat Cultivar ‘Parshall'.

The intensive use of the Chinese Sumai3 as the major resistance source for FHB has narrowed the variation of the allelic forms in many wheat breeding programs. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate new genetic regions in the North Dakota (ND) spring wheat cultivars. A population with 110 RIL, called (PR), was generated from the cross between ‘Parshall’ and ‘Reeder’, a moderate resistant and a susceptible cultivars released by the ND State University, respectively. PR population was evaluated for FHB resistance for the three years (2010-2012) under field conditions at three different locations in the USA. In addition, two years (2011-2012) of greenhouse experiments were performed to validate field data. Several FHB resistance traits including incidence (INC), severity (SEV), FHB-index (NDX), deoxynevalonel (DON), and FHB-damaged kernel (FDK), and heading date (HD) were assessed. Our results revealed that out of 65 QTL; 39 QTL had significant major effect. Three QTL (QFHB.2AL, QFHB.3AL1 and QFHB.3BL3) were stable across at least three year x location environments. Likewise, four QTL (QFHB.4AL2.a, QHD.4AL2.b, QFHB.4BS and QFHB.6BL) were stable and had major effect across at least four environments. Most importantly, the QFHB.4BL2.a QTL was stable under nine environments controlling four different FHB-related traits including SEV and FDK. Our data also demonstrated that Parshall acquired novel chromosomal regions for FHB resistance. Such new regions may contain allelic forms that help increase/widen and bridge the narrow allelic variation existed in FHB resistance traits. These alleles could be implemented in national and international genome wide selection (GWS) and molecular assisted breeding (MAB) programs. Finally, Parshall pyramids many genomic regions that were associated with high-yield and quality end-uses, and other agronomic, including drought tolerance that can improve wheat production.