Research

Background

Results from this research will be directly applied to winter wheat variety development at the University of Manitoba and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. CWRW breeders will benefit from an improved understanding of the leaf rust resistance in our germplasm and from the ability to predict leaf rust resistance using GS models and marker-assisted selection. This will translate into improvements in selection accuracy and increased efficiency in our breeding programs.

Objectives

1. Characterize leaf rust resistance in the association mapping population in field and indoor trials
2. Test the association mapping population with DNA markers spanning the entire wheat genome.
3. Indentify DNA markers associated with leaf rust resistance based upon GWAS
4. Identify the most likely leaf rust resistance genes controlling observed leaf rust resistance
5. Genomic selection (GS) models for predicting leaf rust resistance in breeding germplasm.