Estimation of winter barley for loose smut resistance

Abstract

In order to obtain high-quality seeds and high yields of agricultural crops, it is important to preserve crops until harvesting. Ear diseases cause the greatest harm, affecting the most valuable part of the plant. The studied causative agent of loose smut Ustilago nuda (C.N. Jensen) Rostr. destroys the ear completely, leaving only a black dusty mass. Winter barley is of great demand in production throughout the country, especially in the southern regions. Breeding varieties for resistance to this pathogen is still relevant today. The current paper has presented the results of the immunological characteristics of winter barley varieties undergoing competitive and inter-station variety testing. The purpose of the study was to identify winter barley varieties that were stably tolerant and resistant to the pathogen. The study was conducted at the infection plot of the FSBSI “ARC “Donskoy” in the period 2021–2023 using forced infection during the flowering period. There have been identified the varieties and lines of the ARC that demonstrated high and practical resistance to the pathogen. There has been identified a maximum number (102 samples) under the conditions of 2023, 78 samples under the conditions of 2022, and only 71 under the conditions of 2021. There were no highly susceptible samples in the studied material. The maximum damage was 34.9 % for the variety ‘Caprice’ under the arid conditions of 2022. There has been given characteristics of the varieties that have shown high resistance over all the years of the study, such as ‘Timofey’, ‘Step’, ‘Marusya’, ‘Kvant’, ‘Foks 1’, ‘Master’, ‘Samson’, ‘Sprinter’, ‘Dostoyny’, ‘Espada’, ‘Onega’. There has been noted that the breeding lines of the ARC ‘Parallelum 2019’, ‘Nutans 2137’, ‘Parallelum 2149’, ‘Parallelum 2136’, ‘Parallelum 2110’, ‘Parallelum 2131’ have shown high resistance to the pathogen.