&lt;b&gt;History of northern corn leaf blight disease in the seventh cycle of recurrent selection of an UENF-14 popcorn population

Rodrigo Moreira Ribeiro,Guilherme Ferreira Pena,Marcelo Vivas,Railan Nascimento Kurosawa,Antônio Teixeira Amaral Júnior,Leandro Simões Azeredo Gonçalves

doi:10.4025/actasciagron.v38i4.30573

<b>History of northern corn leaf blight disease in the seventh cycle of recurrent selection of an UENF-14 popcorn population

Rodrigo Moreira Ribeiro, Guilherme Ferreira Pena + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.4025/actasciagron.v38i4.30573

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Abstract

To investigate the genetic resistance to northern corn leaf blight (Exserohilum turcicum) disease in the UENF-14 popcorn population and the inclusion of this trait in the analysis, two hundred ten popcorn half-sib families were evaluated using an incomplete block design with treatments arranged in replicates Sets. Regarding the Families within Set (F/S) source of variation, enough genetic variability was found for northern corn leaf blight disease resistance to be explored in the next cycles of the UENF popcorn breeding program. The open-pollinated UENF-14 variety has a source of resistance to this disease in its genetic basis, given that it originated from crossing with an American cultivar with yellow grains that is resistant to disease. These results strengthen the possibility of selecting resistant families across the cycles, so it is concluded that the selection was effective at maintaining the balance in the occurrence of the disease in the study population and that the source of resistance is not lost with advancing cycles. The addition of the foliar disease variable in the analysis is of the utmost importance for the improvement of popcorn as it makes it possible to aggregate genes for resistance to this disease along with agronomic traits of interest.

Highlights

Popcorn (Zea mays everta Sturt.) is a special type of maize and a popular snack food in Brazil, where its consumption has increased over the years, so it has become an economically attractive crop for farmers across the country (Mendes de Paula et al, 2010; Silva, Amaral Júnior, Gonçalves, Freitas Júnior, & Ribeiro, 2011; Moterle et al, 2012; Gonçalves et al, 2014)
The results revealed that, in most groups, two cycles of recurrent selection were efficient for concentrating resistance genes that promoted good control of northern corn leaf blight disease, but in some cases, there was a reduction in the level of resistance
The Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENF)-14 popcorn population has been crossed with the American popcorn variety, which is resistant to northern corn leaf blight (Resh et al, 2015), so the main purpose of this study was to evaluate the severity of the disease over seven recurrent selection cycles (C0 to C6) to verify that the alleles that confer resistance to E. turcicum have been maintained over the cycles

Summary

Introduction

Popcorn (Zea mays everta Sturt.) is a special type of maize and a popular snack food in Brazil, where its consumption has increased over the years, so it has become an economically attractive crop for farmers across the country (Mendes de Paula et al, 2010; Silva, Amaral Júnior, Gonçalves, Freitas Júnior, & Ribeiro, 2011; Moterle et al, 2012; Gonçalves et al, 2014). Popcorn plants have a less developed root system and suffer greater damage by attack from curcubit beetle worms (D. speciosa) and nematodes, which makes the plant more susceptible to lodging and desiccation (Li et al, 2008). This maize crop is further affected by several leaf diseases, which can cause significant damage to yield and grain quality. Helminthosporium turcicum Pass.) and is characterized as one of the main foliar diseases (Carson, 2006; Harlapur et al, 2008; Scapin, Carnelossi, Vieira, Schwan-Estrada, & Cruz, 2010; Ishfaq et al, 2014)

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