Tracking of powdery mildew and leaf rust resistance genes in Triticum boeoticum and T. urartu, wild relatives of common wheat

Wild Triticum and Aegilops species are increasingly used in wheat breeding programmes around the world as donors of genes conferring resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, as well as of genes that contribute to the improvement of grain quality. In the present study, thirty-nine accessions of diploid species with the A genome (Triticum boeoticum and T. urartu) were evaluated for the presence of the genes conferring resistance to powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis) and leaf rust (Puccinia recondita) using both inoculation tests and sequence tagged sites (STS) marker analyses in order to find correspondence between STS markers and resistance as a trait. The most resistant entries were T. boeoticum accessions. All the marked Lr and Pm resistance genes (Pm1, Pm2, Pm3, Lr10, Lr47, Lr25 and Lr28) were identified in the check T. aestivum cultivar Bezostaya 1. The resistance to powdery mildew in the material studied was conferred by the combination of the Pm1 gene with either Pm2 or Pm3. The Pm1 and Pm3 markers appeared to be suitable for tracking these powdery mildew resistance genes, while the Pm2 gene marker cannot be considered as usable in various genetically different wheat accessions. The presence of the genes Lr25, Lr28 and Lr47 seems to be particularly useful for obtaining leaf rust resistance in T. boeoticum and T. urartu species.