Grass Hosts Harbor More Diverse Isolates of Puccinia striiformis Than Cereal Crops

Puccinia striiformis causes stripe rust on cereal crops and many grass species. However, it is not clear whether the stripe rust populations on grasses are able to infect cereal crops and how closely they are related to each other. In this study, 103 isolates collected from wheat, barley, triticale, rye, and grasses in the United States were characterized by virulence tests and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Of 69 pathotypes identified, 41 were virulent on some differentials of wheat only, 10 were virulent on some differentials of barley only, and 18 were virulent on some differentials of both wheat and barley. These pathotypes were clustered into three groups: group one containing isolates from wheat, triticale, rye, and grasses; group two isolates were from barley and grasses; and group three isolates were from grasses and wheat. SSR markers identified 44 multilocus genotypes (MLGs) and clustered them into three major molecular groups (MG) with MLGs in MG3 further classified into three subgroups. Isolates from cereal crops were present in one or more of the major or subgroups, but not all, whereas grass isolates were present in all of the major and subgroups. The results indicate that grasses harbor more diverse isolates of P. striiformis than the cereals.