ARS | Publication request: Registration of OhVRS-1 Maize Synthetic Population

Submitted to: Journal of Plant Registrations
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: June 30, 2012
Publication Date: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Virus diseases in corn and other crops are most efficiently controlled using resistant plants, and resistance to a number of maize infecting viruses has been identified and mapped in the corn genome. However, resistance to multiple viruses in agronomically adapted materials is not available. We developed a virus resistant maize population from nine different virus-resistant tropical and cornbelt inbred lines to the agronomically adapted line B73 using recurrent selection. The recurrent selection process resulted in increased resistance to Maize chlorotic dwarf virus, Maize dwarf mosaic virus and Sugarcane mosaic virus. The population will be useful for domestic and international maize breeders working with corn and sweet corn who need to incorporate virus resistance into their breeding lines.

Technical Abstract: The OhVRS-1 maize (Zea mays L.) population was developed by the USDA Corn and Soybean Research Unit at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, OH, and released as a germplasm resource for resistance to virus diseases. It is a synthetic population made up of tropical and cornbelt germplasm selected for high levels of resistance to viral diseases. It has undergone one complete cycle of S1 recurrent selection with selection for resistance to Maize dwarf mosaic virus, Sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV), and Maize chlorotic dwarf virus. In selection evaluation experiments OhVRS-1 Cycle-1 had a significant improvement in SCMV resistance, and a reduction in days to mid-silk when compared to Cycle-0.