Manoj Kumar¹ , Rishi  Muni Singh¹ , Mohinder  Prashar² , Rajiva  Kumar Agrawal¹ , Ramesh  Chand³

1 Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
2 Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR) Regional Station, Flowerdale, Shimla 171002, India
3 Department of Mycology and Plant Pathology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
Author    Correspondence author
Plant Gene and Trait, 2015, Vol. 6, No. 9   doi: 10.5376/pgt.2015.06.0009
Received: 05 Jul., 2015    Accepted: 27 Aug., 2015    Published: 24 Dec., 2015

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The genetics of partial resistance to leaf rust (Puccinia triticina Erikss. & Henn.) in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L. em Thell) was investigated in a nine-parent diallel (excluding reciprocals) using area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) and final disease severity (FDS) in the F₁ and F₂ generations. Test material consisted of slow rusting and susceptible lines. The Vr-Wr graphs exhibited partial dominance for FDS and complete dominance for AUDPC (F₁ and F₂generations). Parents CPAN1796, HD2329, NW1014 and MACS2496 had preponderance of minor genes for partial resistance, whereas, susceptible parents SONALIKA and HS1138-6-4 showed absence of minor genes for both AUDPC and FDS (F₁ and F₂ generations). Variations due to additive and dominance genetic variances were significant for both AUDPC and FDS (F₁ and F₂ generations). The estimate of 1-3 minor gene(s) in the slow rusting parents may be responsible for race non-specific adult plant resistance. Since narrow sense heritability for both AUDPC and FDS, was moderate in both F₁ and F₂, success in selecting desirable lines with partial resistance to leaf rust in early segregating generations can easily be achieved. The parents CPAN1796, NW1014, HD2329, PBW373 and RAJ3077 with low AUDPC and FDS having partial resistance either due to Lr34 and/ or minor genes were identified as good general combiners. The parents identified in the study can be used in breeding program for developing high yielding cultivars with durable leaf rust resistance.

AUDPC; Diallel; FDS; Leaf rust; Partial resistance; Wheat