mapping

Leaf rust caused by Puccinia triticina is one of the most historical and economically important wheat diseases. Breeding for new cultivars with effective gene combinations is the most promising approach for reducing losses due to leaf rust. Wild emmer wheat, Triticum dicoccoides, the progenitor of modern tetraploid and hexaploid wheats, is an important resource for new variability for disease resistance genes. An accession of T. dicoccoides acc. pau4656 showed resistance against prevailing leaf rust races in India, when tested at the seedling and adult plant stage. The introgression line, developed from the cross of the leaf rust resistant T. dicoccoides acc. pau4656 and the susceptible T. durum cultivar Bijaga yellow, was crossed with T. durum cultivar PBW114 to generate recombinant inbred lines (RIL) for mapping leaf rust resistance gene(s). RIL population was screened against highly virulent leaf rust race 77-5 at seedling stage and inheritance analyses revealed the segregation of two leaf rust resistance genes. The genes have been temporarily designated as LrD1 and LrD2. A set of 387 SSR marker was used for bulked segregant analysis (BSA). The markers showing diagnostic polymorphism in the resistant and susceptible bulks were amplified on whole of the population. Single marker analysis using MapDisto software placed LrD1 on the long arm of chromosome 6A linked to the SSR marker Xwmc256 and LrD2 on long arm of chromosome 2A close to the SSR marker Xwmc632. T. durum cv. PBW114 used in the present study was also resistant to leaf rust at the seedling stage. So one of these leaf rust resistance genes might have been contributed by the PBW114 and other by T. dicoccoides. The current study identified valuable leaf rust resistance genes for deployment in wheat breeding programme.