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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Raleigh, North Carolina » Plant Science Research » Research » Research Project #438374

Research Project: Cooperative Research for Screening and Development of Wheat Germplasm with Improved Resistance to Rust Diseases

Location: Plant Science Research

Project Number: 6070-22000-019-006-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Aug 1, 2020
End Date: Jul 30, 2025

Objective:
The objective of the cooperative research between University of Arkansas and the USDA Agricultural Research Service is to evaluate, identify, and develop sources of resistance to rust diseases in wheat.

Approach:
University of Arkansas will identify and obtain sources of rust resistance in cooperation with the USDA-ARS Plant Science Research Unit (PSRU), and other collaborating breeding programs. These sources of resistance will be used as parents in the breeding program to introgress rust resistance into advanced and elite breeding lines of winter wheat. Top and/or backcrosses to adapted, elite lines will be made to develop desirable segregating populations, or double haploid lines. When available, molecular markers for known sources of rust resistance will be used to characterize parental lines and in marker assisted transfer and selection of resistance. Populations developed from the introgressions will be inbred and advanced using traditional and/or marker assisted breeding methods. Pure lines selected from advance breeding populations will be genotyped using available molecular markers and phenotypes for reaction to rust diseases will be obtained in cooperative disease screening experiments conducted in field, greenhouse and/or growth chamber trials. Elite lines having rust resistance will be evaluated in regional and uniform yield nurseries, and superior lines will be released as cultivars. Data and germplasm will be shared between ARS, University of Arkansas, and other collaborating scientists.