Location: Crop Production and Pest Control Research
Project Number: 5020-21000-001-012-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jun 1, 2026
End Date: May 31, 2027
Objective:
i) Phenotyping wheat genotypes in Hessian fly field screening nursery for resistance or tolerance to Hessian fly field population.
(ii) Fine-mapping, marker validation, and positional cloning of H33, a new, major Hessian fly resistance gene in wheat.
Approach:
i) Wheat genotypes or germplasms previously documented to exhibit resistance or tolerance to Hessian fly under greenhouse conditions will be evaluated in a Hessian fly field screening nursery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
ii) For fine-mapping the Hessian fly resistance gene H33, a family of near-isogenic lines (NILs) will be developed from heterozygous lines that exhibit recombination within the previously delimited H33 candidate region (33–51 Mb on chromosome 3AS).
iii) Resistance levels of the developed H33 NILs to Hessian fly will be assessed through field evaluations in the Hessian fly screening nursery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
iv) The identified candidate region will be genotyped using genomic tools and phenotyped under both controlled greenhouse and field conditions to assess resistance to Hessian fly.