Slow rusting resistance in 19 promising wheat lines to yellow rust in Ardabil, Iran

Yellow rust caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici is undoubtedly, the most important fungal disease of wheat especially in central and Western Asia that causes significant annual yield losses. Production and use of cultivars with durable resistance is the best controlling method. For this purpose, study on reaction of 19 promising lines to yellow rust was carried out in Ardabil in 2008-2009 cropping year. Assessment of adult plant reaction was conducted under field condition with artificial inoculation. Seedling test was also conducted in greenhouse. Slow rusting resistance at adult plant stage was assessed through the Infection Type (IT), Disease Severity (DS), Relative Area Under Disease Progress Curve (rAUDPC) and Coefficient of Infection (CI). Results of mean comparison of CI and rAUDPC indicated that the lines; C-87-1, C-87-2, C-87-3 and C-87-18 had the highest CI and rAUDPC. The lines C-87-6, C-87-8 and C-87-11 had the susceptible reaction at seedling test and were moderately resistant to moderately susceptible at adult plant stage. Consequently, these lines with low rAUDPC (15.2 to 27.8%) most probably could have slow rusting resistance. The lines C-87-4, C-87-5, C-87-13, C-87-14 and C-87-17 had not any infection or were at low level of infection, thus, they were selected as immune or resistant lines. The rest lines were moderately resistant to moderately susceptible. In this study, correlation analysis of different parameters also showed highly strong relationship of CI with rAUDPC and disease severity (R2 = 0.91 and 0.98, respectively).