Inheritance of leaf resistance to Septoria nodorum Berk. in two crosses of spring wheat

Abstract

The F2 progeny of two spring wheat crosses involving susceptible and moderately resistant parent cultivars were tested in the field for their reaction to infection by Septoria nodorum Berk. The variation in symptom expression was continuous, providing no support for the existence of individually acting major genes. The broad sense heritability values for the crosses were moderate at 0.47 and 0.34 with over half of the variation being of environmental origin. The results are discussed in relation to developing a resistance breeding strategy for wheat to S. nodorum.