Abstract:
Wheat stem rust rapidly evolves a new virulence to resistance genes. Recently emerging races in
East Africa, such as TTKSK (or Ug99), possess broad virulence to durum cultivars, and only a
limited number of genes provide resistance. In attempts to identify and characterize stem rust
resistance genes effective against four pgt races with broad virulence (TRTTF, TTTTF, TTKSK
and JRCQC) at the seedling stage, a panel of durum wheat germplasm collected from major
durum growing countries were evaluated.
In this study, 183 durum wheat germplasm were screened for seedling resistance to stem rust
races under controlled condition with the aim of identifying source of resisnce to stem rust in the
future breeding activity.The seedling stage infection types were scored based on standard scoring
method. The germplasm showed diverse seedling resistance responses to the four races.
Germplasm with high resistance to multiple races were identified. The current result of this study
identified suitable parental lines for further improving stem rust resistance in durum wheat in
Ethiopia where such races are prevalent. |
