Effectiveness of resistance genes to powdery mildew in oat

Abstract

Powdery mildew is a very important oat disease in many parts of the world. Three of the seven described resistance genes have been introduced thus far into oat breeding programmes. There is no information in the literature about the effectiveness of powdery mildew resistance genes in oat. Given this fact, the aim of the present study was the analysis of the effectiveness of oat genes encoding resistance to powdery mildew. Fifty-five isolates were used to assess the efficacy of 5 different genes encoding resistance to powdery mildew. The current study showed that the resistance controlled by Pm6, Pm1 and Pm3 genes was not efficient in Polish conditions. Pm4 proved to be the most effective gene, while the Pm7 gene induced a high or intermediate response in the isolates of powdery mildew used in the study. In addition, Cultivar Canyon showed a high level of resistance. This study demonstrated that Pm4 and Pm7 genes were responsible for the high level of resistance, and that the Cultivar Canyon could be used as a valuable source of resistance after determining whether this resistance is controlled by a new single gene or a combination of several genes.