Researchers have successfully developed new lines of pea plants with improved resistance to mycosphaerella pinodes blight.
Once these resistant varieties are registered and become commercially available, reduced dependence on fungicides could lower costs for producers.
“The lines being tested for registration will have about two times the resistance levels of the current variety,” said lead researcher Allen Xue, a plant pathologist with the Agriculture Canada Research Centre in Morden, Man., whose work was assisted by the Western Grains Research Foundation.
“In other words, it would take two applications of chemicals normally used to control blight, for the current variety to achieve the natural resistance of the new variety.”
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Registration coming
Researchers developed new lines from crosses between partially resistant genotypes and cultivars with good agronomic qualities. Several of these lines were advanced to the Western Co-operative Tests for 1998-99 and scientists are hoping to see them registered as commercial pea varieties by 2001.
“We wanted to study the pathogenic variation of mycosphaerella pinodes in Western Canada,” said Xue. “Before this research, pea breeders had no starting point to breed for resistance because there was little information available on the pathogenic variability of the blight here in Canada.”
Scientists identified 22 different types of the blight in Western Canada and found one that was dominant. They then identified existing pea genotypes with resistance to the dominant type. Several genotypes, including Danto, Majoret, Radley and J164, had lower disease severity than others tested.
These genotypes, considered to be moderately resistant to the disease, were passed on to breeders as sources of resistance for breeding programs in Western Canada.
Twenty-nine pea genotypes with partial resistance were screened from more than 2,000 varieties. In addition, researchers developed an inexpensive and rapid method to detect seed transmission of the pathogen.
The traditional method of evaluating disease transmission by seed is expensive and takes several days. Some seed companies have expressed interest in adapting the new, improved method, Xue said.
Researchers are continuing to look for resistance genes in peas to provide a genetic marker-assisted selection tool for resistance breeding programs in Canada. Their search will focus on better markers that are closely linked to the genes for resistance.
