Annual Progress Report on Malting Barley Research March, 2007

• Our continued collaboration on leaf and head disease screening contributed to the
development of a good disease resistance package in line ND20448, a line with less FHB
than Robust and good malting characteristics. ND20448 was found acceptable in its first
year of AMBA Pilot Scale Evaluation.
• Our continued collaboration on leaf and head disease screening contributed to the
development of a good disease resistance package in Stellar-ND, which has been found
satisfactory in one year of Anheuser-Busch plant scale testing and two years of Miller
Brewing plant scale testing.
DETAILED REPORT
1. Evaluate elite barley germplasm and segregating breeding populations for
resistance to Fusarium Head blight (FHB) and the accumulation of deoxynivalenol.
Working together with the breeders, Prof R. Horsley and Prof. J. Franckowiak, NDSU (until
retirement in July 06), the barley pathology project has led the establishment, inoculum
production, inoculation, maintenance and screening for FHB resistance in irrigated and
dryland plots of barley in North Dakota. In 2006, a total of 162 NABSEN rows were
screened for Fusarium Head Blight in multiple field locations including irrigated experiments
at Fargo, China and Langdon.
The barley pathology group also screened under both irrigated and non-irrigated
environmental conditions about 300 rows of unique lines being tested for Fusarium
resistance from the combined program of Dr Lynn Dahleen at Cereal Crops Research Unit
USDA Fargo and Dr Phil Bregitzer at Small Grains Research Unit USDA, Aberdeen Idaho.
The North American Barely Scab Evaluation Nursery (NABSEN) trials were co-ordinated
and ND trials were established at Langdon ND, Fargo ND and Hangzhou China with part
funding from the US Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative. The 48 experimental entries and the
6 resistant or susceptible controls include lines from NDSU 6-rowed breeding program,
NDSU 2-rowed breeding program, Minnesota breeding program, Busch-Ag breeding
program, CIMMYT breeding program and the Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada Research
breeding program as well as the USDA Cereal Crops Research Unit Barley Genetics
program. This collaboration facilitates exchange of germplasm between the participating
breeding programs and allows comparisons of performance across a range of
environments.
Approximately 1,000 rows of lines from the diverse germplasm screening projects at NDSU
Barley Pathology, Minnesota Barley Pathology, Agriculture Canada Brandon and
ICARDA/CIMMYT Barley Breeding Program were evaluated in off-season trials at Zheijiang
University in Hangzhou China. A total of 157 rows of the same material were evaluated in
Fargo ND and Langdon ND. Assessments were made when entries were at the soft dough
stage of development. Characters recorded included, infected kernels per head, number of
infected heads and total kernels per head.
2. Screen barley cultivars for resistance to spot blotch.
Field: A total of 189 plots of advanced 2-rowed or 6-rowed breeder’s lines were screened
for spot blotch (Cochliobolus sativus) resistance in the field at Fargo in irrigated and
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