Genetics of durable resistance to leaf rust in some exotic wheat cultivars

Abstract

Wheat crop is attacked by three rust pathogens out of which leaf rust caused by Puccinia recondita 1. sp. tritici is the most important in north India. The use of race-specific hypersensitive resistance lead to boom and bust cycles making it necessary to quickly replace such cultivars after their release. Under such conditions, non-hypersensitive adult plant resistance which is known for its durable nature (Mcintosh, 1) can be successfully exploited to manage this disease. Characterization of resistance in terms of nature and number of genes governing resistance is a pre-requisite for their systematic and efficient exploitation in breeding programme. The present report deals with the genetic studies on three exotic cultivars viz. Chris (USA) Banks and Egret (Australia) having such resistance.