Background/context:

Diseases in cereals and sunflowers cause very significant losses in crop yield and farm-gate values. Rust disease is a major constraint to sunflower production in Australia. Without resistance to this disease, the industry would fail. The rust fungus is evolving at an alarmingly rapid rate, placing considerable pressure on the availability and durability of commercial sources of resistance. Due to recent changes in the rust population, there are currently no rust resistant commercial sunflower hybrids available. This situation applies equally to oats and oat rust.

 Aim:

This project focused on the identification and development of DNA markers that could be used to greatly accelerate the development of new lines with multiple genes for resistance (Marker- Assisted Selection; MAS). The identification of markers for root lesion nematode (RLN) resistance in wheat was included in the project as phenotyping of RLN resistance in wheat lines is very time consuming.

Major Outcomes:

This project generated multiple outcomes such as:

• the sunflower industry alerted to the presence of new rust pathotypes to allow them to refocus their breeding programs

• markers for more than 20 sunflower rust resistance genes identified, with 20 markers currently available to industry

• over 140 new sources of rust resistance have been identified from USA wild sunflower germplasm collections made by Dr Kong in 1999, 2000 and 2003

• sunflower lines containing strategically pyramided rust resistance genes have been developed using DNA markers

• the sunflower model was used to develop disease resistance markers for winter cereals

• the construction of a genetic linkage map of sunflower and identify QTL for Alternaria blight resistance.

Work will continue in this area to develop germplasms to a point where they can be used in future breeding programs. The net benefits afforded from this research have been calculated at around $10 million – a 2-fold return on the Centre’s investment in this project.

For more information contact:

Dr Gary Kong
Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries
Phone: +61 (0)7 4688 1319
Email: gary.kong@dpi.qld.gov.au