Bringing Barley Back: Analysis of Heritage Varieties for Use as Germplasm Sources to Improve Resistance against the Most Devastating, Contemporary Disease in Canada, Fusarium Head Blight (Fusarium graminearum)

Abstract

Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused by Fusarium graminearum, is currently the most devastating disease for barley (Hordeum vulgare) in Canada. Associated mycotoxins can compromise grain quality, where deoxynivalenol (DON) is considered particularly damaging due to its frequency of detection. Breeding barley with a lower DON content is difficult, due to the poor adaptation and malt quality of resistance sources. A set of European-derived heritage varieties were screened in an FHB nursery in Charlottetown, PE, with selections tested at Brandon, MB, between 2018-2022. Genetic evaluation demonstrated a distinct clustering of Canadian varieties from the heritage set. At Brandon, 72% of the heritage varieties ranked lower for DON content than did the moderately resistant Canadian check 'AAC Goldman', but resistance was associated with later heading and taller stature. In contrast with Canadian modern malting variety 'AAC Synergy', general deficiencies were observed in yield, enzyme activity, and extract, along with higher protein content. Nonetheless, several resistant varieties were identified with reasonable a heading date and yield, including 'Chevallier Chile', 'Domen', 'Djugay', 'Hannchen', 'Heils Franken', 'Moravian Barley', 'Loosdorfer' with 'Golden Melon', 'Nutans Moskva', and 'Vellavia', these being some of the most promising varieties when malting quality characteristics were also considered. These heritage resources could be used as parents in breeding to develop FHB-resistant malting barley varieties.

Keywords: barley; deoxynivalenol; fusarium head blight; germplasm resources.

Figure 1

Heat map of Pearson’s correlation coefficients between characters: Fusarium head blight rating (FHB); Log₁₀ deoxynivalenol content (LogDON); yield (kg ha⁻¹); test weight (TWT); height in cm (HT); days to heading (HEAD); days to maturity (MAT); thousand kernel weight (TKW); percent plump kernels (PLUMP); fine grind extract (XF); soluble to total protein (S/T); grain protein (GPRO); alpha amylase (AA); soluble protein (SP); diastatic power (DP).

Figure 2

Sub-population membership for 58 barley genotypes grouped by three major clusters of genetic variants including (1) six-row varieties (purple); (2) Modern Canadian varieties (orange); (3) Two-row heritage and resistance source varieties (blue).

Figure 3

Scatter plot of analysis of first two principal components of genotype information involving 2358 single-nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) markers with colour highlights: (1) yellow points represent six-row heritage varieties; (2) blue points represent two-row heritage varieties; (3) black points represent common FHB resistance sources; (4) red points represent modern Canadian varieties.