ITEMS FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC

RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF CROP PRODUCTION - RICP

Drnovska 507, CZ-161 06 Prague 6 - Ruzyne, Czech Republic.

http://genbank.vurv.cz/ewdb

Collection of triticale in the Czech gene bank. [p. 46-47]

Z. Stehno and L. Cejka.

As a relatively new crop, the growing area of triticale in the Czech Republic is increasing. The area of triticale grown as grain crop increased from 15,000 ha in 1997 to 49,500 ha in 2001. Grain yield was relatively stable and ranged between 3.74 t/ha (2000) and 4.04 t/ha (1999) (Table 1).

Winter cultivars are more productive and were grown on most of the triticale growing area. Among the released cultivars are one spring and seven winter types. Two winter cultivars, Kolor and Ring, were bred by Czech company Selgen, a.s. Most of the other winter and spring cultivars registered in the Czech Republic come from central Europe.

The collection of winter triticale was established in 1980s, and spring triticale accessions have been collected since 1992. At present, the collection consists of 398 winter and 214 spring cultivars and advanced lines. Triticale accessions are regularly evaluated in field trials on 10-m^2^ plots in four replications. The winter wheat Samanta is used as a long-term check cultivar and enables us to compare of results from different years. Resistance to lodging and powdery mildew, rusts, and Septoria diseases are emphasized during evaluation.

In 2001, we confirmed that triticale plants are usually higher (7-37 cm) then check wheat plants (Table 2). Consequently, resistance of triticale to lodging was lower in general; only Boreas, Nemo, Piano, and Mundo reached or had better lodging resistance than that of Samanta.

The situation with powdery mildew is very clear. No symptoms of this disease appeared on any of triticale cultivars. Samanta was medium susceptible to the disease. All triticale accessions have higher resistance to Septoria than the check wheat. Similarly, all triticale cultivars had higher resistance to rust infection, except Origo and Zolder.

All triticale cultivars except Zolder, Marko, and Angus overcame check winter wheat cultivar Samanta in grain yield.

The cultivar Chacal was very early for all recorded traits (51.0, 58.5, and 102.5 days, for beginning of heading, flowering, and wax ripeness, respectively). On the other hand, the cultivar Mostral was the latest (57.5, 64.0, and 108.0 days, respectively). The check spring wheat cultivar Sandra had the shortest grain-filling stage and relatively late heading but reached wax ripeness very early. All stages were influenced by growing conditions of the year (significant differences were noted between years).

Announcement of the on-line catalog of Wheat Pedigrees, Genes, and Identified Alleles. [p. 47-48]

I. Faberova and S.P. Martynov (N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR), St. Petersburg, Russian Federation).

An internet catalog of pedigrees and identified alleles, developed in collaboration between the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR), St. Petersburg, and the N.I. Vavilov Institute of General Genetics RAS, Moscow (Russian Federation), and RICP Prague (Czech Republic), is now available at <http://genbank.vurv.cz/wheat/pedigree/>. The application includes genealogies, genes, and identified alleles of 69,632 wheat accessions, linked to 2,529 bibliographical references. This internet catalog follows the Catalogue, Genealogies and Gene Alleles Identified in 31 000 Cultivars and Lines of Wheat (Vols. I and II, 1992) and Genealogies and Gene Alleles of Wheat, 15 000 Cultivars and Lines (Vol. III, 1996) published as hard copies and the well-known electronic Catalogue GRIP versions I and II at <http://www.psu.missouri.edu/grip/ >.

This new on-line catalogue allows searches of ancestors in multilevel pedigree trees and the location of genes and their combinations among the wide wheat assortment. Graphic forms for genealogical trees, basic passport data, and bibliographical references can be displayed as accompanying information. We expect that the catalogue will be a useful tool for wheat breeders and researchers. All data were collected and compiled by S.P. Martynov, VIR, St. Petersburg, and T.V. Dobrotvorskaya, VIGG, Moscow. The Internet application was designed at RICP Prague in collaboration with Dr. Martynov.

The presence of Norin 10 dwarfing genes in winter wheat cultivars. [p. 48]

J. Chrpova, M. Skorpik, V. Síp, and L. Bobkova (SELGEN a.s., Breeding Station, Uhretice, Czech Republic).

Of 57 winter wheat cultivars registered in the Czech Republic, 20 cultivars (35 %) were insensitive to applied gibberellic acid (GA), which indicates the presence of Norin 10 dwarfing (Rht) genes. By hybridization analyses in F2 generation, the presence of the Rht1 gene was detected in six cultivars (Astella, Elpa, Ilona, Solara, Vlada, and Rheia), and 14 cultivars were found to carry the Rht2 gene (Athlet, Contra, Corsaire, Record, Rialto, Ritmo, Sepstra, Sarka, Versailles, Vlasta, Windsor, Clever, Trend, and Mladka) (Table 3).

In cooperation with the Breeding Station at Uhretice, SELGEN, a.s., selection for taller GA-insensitive plants resulted in development of an advanced breeding line SG-RU 24, which was tested for 3 years in the Official Trials of the Czech Republic. This new cultivar, carrying Rht1 (transferred from the parental cultivar Vlada), was registered in 2002 under the name Rheia. Mladka (registered in 2002), bred in the Breeding Station Uhretice, SELGEN a.s., is another new very high yielding Czech winter cultivar with the Norin 10 gene Rht2 (transferred from the cultivar Contra).

Resistance to Fusarium head blight infection and DON accumulation in winter wheat. [p. 49]

V. Síp, S. Sykorová, J. Chrpová, and L. Papousková.

The resistance to FHB infection and accumulation of DON was evaluated in 10 selected winter wheat cultivars after inoculation with two isolates of F. culmorum at two experimental sites for 3 years. In the trials with infected and uninfected (control) variants and two replicates, we determined a visual symptom score (VSS), grain weight/spike (GWS), grain number/spike (GNS), 1,000-kernel weight (TKW), heading date, and DON content (using a quantitative ELISA method).

On average, the pathogen caused reductions (R) in GNS, TJW, and GWS of 24 %, 36 %, and 51 %, respectively. The average DON content was 30 mg/kg. ANOVA showed highly significant genotypic differences in the characters measuring resistance/tolerance to FHB and also in DON content, but relatively larger were the effects of the isolate and conditions of year and experimental site. Cultivars did not differ in their response to the isolate, but the aggressiveness of isolates was different in different years. Resistant or moderately resistant cultivars Arina, SG-U-466 (Bona), and Sparta ranked 1-4 for VSS, GWS-R, TKW-R, and DON. To the contrary, the early cultivar Hana ranked tenth for VSS, ninth for GWS-R, fifth for TKW-R, and forth for DON, suggesting a high affection of grain yield due to infection and relatively lower effect on grain size and DON content.

Predicting DON content was better using reduction of TKW and TKW after infection than by symptom scoring. Variability in DON content was high with the susceptible response (high infection severity). Cultivars resistant or moderately resistant to FHB showed a stable reaction (regression coefficient b < 1). Variation in DON content using correlation analysis and principal component analysis showed the positive effects of conditions that caused high reductions of grain size and number and led to high performance of these traits in the control, an uninfected variant at later heading. High variation in DON content evidently also was due to factors that influenced the beginning of infection in particular year (location) and variety. These results stress the importance of reaching high infection severity in resistance tests.

Reference.

• Síp V, Sykorová S, Papouková L, Stuchlíková E, and Chrpová J. 2001. The influence of Fusarium culmorum L. infection on mycotoxin content in grain of selected wheat varieties. In: Proc Internat Conf Sustainable Systems of Cereal Crop Protection against Fungal Diseases as the Way of Reduction of Toxin Occurrence in Food Webs. Kromeriz, Czech Rep, 2-6 July, 2001. pp. 225-229.