INHERITANCE OF RESISTANCE TO PUCCINIA CORONATA AVENAE AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH SEED CHARACTERISTICS IN FOUR ACCESSIONS OF AVENA STERILIS

Abstract

The inheritance of resistance to oat crown rust Puccinia coronata Cda. f. sp. avenae Eriks. was studied in four accessions of Avena sterilis L. Three of the accessions, CAV 4963, CAV 1358 and CAV 1376, originated from Israel, and one, CAV 1964, from Algeria. Seedling rust tests on F2 backcross families indicated that a single recessive gene, Pc-55, in CAV 4963 conditioned seedling resistance to 10 of 12 crown rust isolates tested. In CAV 1964, a single dominant gene Pc-56 conferred resistance in both the adult and seedling stages to all crown rust isolates tested except race 239, while a second dominant gene conditioned resistance to only two of the twelve cultures used. From adult and seedling tests it appeared that the resistance in CAV 1358 and CAV 1376 was conditioned by a number of recessive minor additive genes. The genes Pc-55 and Pc-56 are not allelic with the A. sterilis derived genes Pc-35, Pc-38, Pc-40, Pc-45, Pc-46, Pc-47, Pc-48, and Pc-50. Genes Pc-39 and Pc-55 are either very closely linked or allelic and Pc-56 is not closely linked to either Pc-39 or Pc-55. The usefulness of genes Pc-55 and Pc-56 was demonstrated in tests which showed that both genes were effective against 99.8 and 94.5%, respectively, of all crown rust cultures isolated in Canada in 1974 and 1975. The genes for seed color and awn character did not appear to be linked to the crown rust resistance genes. In CAV 4963, CAV 1358 and CAV 1376 the genes for grey color and wild type awns appeared to be linked with recombination values of about 2, 23 and 18%, respectively.