The action of three Beet yellows virus resistance QTLs depends on alleles at a novel genetic locus that controls symptom development

Abstract

Abstract Beet yellows virus (BYV) can dramatically reduce yield from sugar beet crops. A BYV resistant plant from a Beta germplasm accession was crossed with a sugar beet plant to generate the segregating population BYV1. This population was evaluated for BYV resistance and analysed with amplified fragment length polymorphism and single‐nucleotide polymorphism markers to identify resistance loci. At 2 weeks after inoculation a number of plants displayed either mosaic or vein‐clearing disease symptoms on infected leaves. The locus that largely controlled this disease reaction was mapped to chromosome IV. We refer to this novel genetic locus as Vc1. Three BYV resistance quantitative trait loci (QTLs) were identified and mapped to chromosomes III, V and VI. QTL mapping results suggested that the chromosome III and V QTLs acted only in plants with mosaic symptoms and that the chromosome VI QTL acted only in plants with the mosaic symptom allele of Vc1. These findings agreed with further statistical tests using general linear model analysis. There is now the potential to breed for BYV resistance using molecular marker technology.