Abstract
Fire blight caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora is a severe threat to apple and pear orchards worldwide. Apple varieties exhibit a wide range of relative susceptibility/tolerance to fire blight. Although, no monogenic resistance against fire blight has been identified yet, recent evidence indicates the existence of quantitative resistance. Potential sources of fire blight resistance include several wild Malus species and some apple cultivars. F1 progenies of ‘Fiesta’בDiscovery’ were inoculated with the Swiss strain Ea 610 and studied under controlled conditions to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for fire blight resistance. Disease was evaluated at four time points after inoculation. Shoot lesion length and the area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) values were used for QTL analysis. One significant (LOD score of 7.5–8.1, p<0.001) QTL was identified on the linkage group 7 of ‘Fiesta’ (F7). The F7 QTL explained about 37.5–38.6% of the phenotypic variation.
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Abbreviations
- AUDPC:
-
Area under disease progress curve
- DAI:
-
Days after inoculation
- F7:
-
Linkage group 7 of Fiesta
- LOD:
-
Logarithm of odds
- MQM:
-
Multiple QTL Model
- PLL:
-
Percent lesion length
- QTL:
-
Quantitative trait loci
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI Grant no. 6502.2 BTS-LS), Schweizerische Obst Verband, Beekeepers Association Ticino and grants from the Cantons Bern, Obwalden, Appenzell A. Rh., St. Gallen, Zürich, Basel, Thurgau, Aargau, Graubünden. We thank Markus Kellerhals, Albert Husistein and Rolf Blap for the preparation of grafted material, Bea Schoch for greenhouse support, Prof. Peter Stamp (Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH Zürich) for valuable suggestions about experimental layout, Prof. Haja Kadarmideen (Institute of Animal Sciences, ETH Zürich) for helping with QTL analysis and Dr. Hans-Rudolf Roth (Seminar für Statistik, ETH Zürich) for helping with statistical analysis.
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Khan, M.A., Duffy, B., Gessler, C. et al. QTL mapping of fire blight resistance in apple. Mol Breeding 17, 299–306 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-006-9000-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-006-9000-y