Phenotyping and genomic selection for improved barley Deoxynivalenol (DON) resistance

Aaron Beattie, University of Saskatoon

Start date: December 23, 2020
End date: April 30, 2026

Alberta Barley’s contribution: $19,895

Evaluation of Deoxynivalenol (DON) content in 2,250 Crop Development Centre (CDC) breeding lines grown in the collaborative AAFC Brandon Fusarium head blight (FHB) nursery located in Brandon, MB and 150 CDC lines grown in collaborative FHB nurseries located in Morden, MB, Ottawa, ON and Charlottetown, PEI. DON data will be used: a) as part of the CDC breeding selection process to improve DON resistance in CDC barley varieties, b) as part of the genomic selection process 

Heading date, height, FHB severity, DON content and genotypic data previously collected on a training population grown in the collaborative AAFC-Brandon FHB nursery for 5 years, along with similar data to be collected annually on a subset (approximately 150-200) of the 2,250 CDC breeding lines grown in the nursery will be used to: a) develop and validate a genomic selection model for DON content, b) select and evaluate lines selected using the genomic selection model