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Breeding of oat for organic farming
Project
Project code: 03OE647/2
Contract period: 01.04.2004
- 31.12.2006
Budget: 53,955 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research
Until now there is no effective seed treatment to prevent losses due to smut of oats in organic farming. For this reason, a three-year-project was applied to set the stage for breeding of resistant varieties. Main objectives were (i) the development of defined smut isolates, (ii) investigation of inheritance of resistances, (iii) screening of oat assortments to find and confirm new resistance sources in naked and husked oats, and (iv) examination of disease incidence after natural infection. Seeds were inoculated using a vacuum-based method. Inoculation was done at -1000 mbar vacuum pressure and with an aqueous spore suspension of 1 g/litre.
After two or three multiplication steps of smut collections from Germany and one from Canada on different cultivars, four smut pathotypes with different virulence patterns were found. Out of the two collections from Germany, three distinctive races were developed. The Canadian accession seems to be more homogeneous, which is indicated by similar virulence patterns of the three selections. The virulence test displayed a different resistance pattern of the cultivar ''Flämingstip'' in comparison with ''Hamel'' and ''Boxer'', whereas the letter two cultivars showed a wider resistance spectrum. Segregation data of F2, F3 and BC1 populations was allegeable by the action of independent dominant genes in each of the three cultivars. Three crosses of the naked oat accession AVE378 with susceptible naked oat varieties were analysed and revealed a dominant digenic inheritance of resistance in AVE378.
At the end of this project 139 oat lines were found to be resistant to all smut pathotypes tested. Another group of 31 oat cultivars displayed resistance to German smut races. Most of the newly released German cultivars are susceptible to smut, indicating the need for breeding of resistant oat cultivars for organic agriculture. The disease incidence after natural infection may be higher than after artificial inoculation, depending from environmental conditions during and after flowering and seeding.
Section overview
Subjects
- Crop Production
- Plant Breeding
- Agroecology
Framework programme
Federal Organic Farming Scheme and other forms of sustainable agriculture (BÖLN)
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Institute for Breeding Research on Agricultural Crops (JKI-ZL)
