Poster Abstract

Winter and facultative wheat covers around 15 mln ha in the region of Central and West Asia and is grown in two distinct environments: irrigated wheat across the region normally in the valleys and lowlands; semi-arid rainfed wheat is primarily grown in the higher elevations and moisture stress presents a major challenge. Both environments are subjected to frequent and devastating attacks by rusts. Yellow Rust is a major pathogen across the region. Leaf Rust is more limited to irrigated lowlands or high rainfall areas. Stem Rust is observed in pockets across the region normally at higher altitudes. Resistance breeding for Yellow and Leaf Rust is very high priority while breeding for resistance to Stem Rust is primarily driven by the potential danger of Ug99 spread. International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (www.iwwip.org) is a joint cooperative program between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Turkey, CIMMYT and ICARDA established more than 20 years ago. IWWIP aims to develop the germplasm suitable for Central and West Asia combining broad adaptation with resistance to prevailing biotic stresses, primarily rusts. IWWIP also plays a key role in facilitating the global germplasm exchange among the winter wheat breeding programs. The germplasm developed by IWWIP as well as the material received from cooperators is distributed to more than 130 cooperators in 50 countries through Facultative and Winter Wheat Observation Nursery (FAWWON) and International Winter Wheat Yield Trial (IWWYT). High turnaround of the winter and facultative wheat germplasm through IWWIP allowed detailed evaluation and screening for disease resistance of a large set of germplasm. Annually 250-300 entries are received from the main winter wheat breeding programs in America, Europe and Asia. The current study summarized the field data from Turkey and other countries of the region for the last three years (2007-2009) for the diverse set of 1000 entries representing both the commonly grown varieties, newly released varieties and advanced breeding lines from more than 30 countries. It appears that the distribution of the resistant germplasm depends on the prevailing rust in the target area of a particular breeding program. The material from the Midwest of USA is normally resistant to Leaf Rust but susceptible to Yellow Rust. The germplasm from Turkey, Iran and neighboring countries has high frequency of resistance to Yellow Rust. Testing of the diverse set of germplasm in Kenya for Stem Rust Ug99 population in the field revealed that around 15% of the germplasm is resistant but there is no clear geographic source of resistance as it occurred equally from different regions. Winter/facultative lines and varieties with multiple resistances to two or three rusts have been identified.

Global Wheat Program

Text in English

CBAK01|INT1787

CIMMYT Staff Publications Collection