Marker assisted improvement of stripe rust resistance in hybrid wheat

Wheat stripe rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis Westend. f. sp. tritici Erikss. (Pst), is one of the major rust fungi that causes severe reduction in yield across the world. Gene pyramiding offers to stack resistant genes in hybrids by incorporating them into their parents. An attempt has been made to introgress the stripe rust resistance genes Yr10 and Yr15 into maintainer line 365B and restorer line 1752 R to optimize the yield potential of hybrids developing at IARI, New Delhi. B (maintainer) and R (Restorer) lines were crossed with their respective donors for Yr10 (AvocetYr10) and Yr15 (HD2967 + Yr15) genes. F1 and backcross generations were screened with linked and validated SSR markers Xpsp3000 for Yr10 in B line and Xgwm273 for Yr15 in R line. Based on marker association, plants carrying Yr10 in B line and Yr15 in R line in each backcross generation were further selected for background recovery. BC2F1 was selfed to obtain BC2F2. Marker assisted breeding helped to reduce the time and effort to improve the parental lines. These improved B lines and R lines will be used for hybrid development after doing background selections. The resistance in B and R lines will ensure the maximum harnessing of heterosis which could be declined due to disease occurrence.