Dissecting Genetic Resistance to Fire Blight in Three Pear Populations

Fire blight, caused by the bacterial pathogen Erwinia amylovora, is a persistent problem for pear (Pyrus spp.) growers in the United States. Growing resistant cultivars is one of the best options for managing fire blight. The cultivars Potomac and Old Home and the selection NJA2R59T69 display resistance to fire blight. As such, three mapping populations (El Dorado × Potomac, Old Home × Bartlett, and NJA2R59T69 × Bartlett) were developed to identify genomic regions associated with resistance to fire blight. Progeny were phenotyped during 2017 and 2018 by inoculating multiple actively growing shoots of field-grown seedling trees with E. amylovora isolate E153n via the cut-leaf method. Genotyping was conducted using the recently developed Axiom Pear 70 K Genotyping Array and chromosomal linkage groups were created for each population. An integrated two-way pseudo-testcross approach was used to map quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Resistance QTLs were identified on chromosome 2 for each population. The QTLs identified in the El Dorado × Potomac and Old Home × Bartlett populations are in the same region as QTLs that were previously identified in Harrow Sweet and Moonglow. The QTL in NJA2R59T69 mapped proximally to the previously identified QTLs and originated from an unknown Asian or occidental source. Future research will focus on further characterizing the resistance regions and developing tools for DNA-informed breeding.