Genetic Resistance to Fusarium Head Blight in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Current Status in Argentina

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) caused by Fusarium graminearum is a common and devastating disease of hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in all temperate growing regions of the world, including Argentina. Host resistance has been considered a highly economical and efficient way to manage the disease, however, progress of breeding for FHB resistance has been limited because of the lack of effective resistance to FHB and the complex inheritance of the partial resistance currently available in wheat. First part of this chapter deals with the impact of FHB in bread and durum wheat from Argentina, as well as the early efforts to improve for FHB resistance in bread wheat. The second part addresses some examples of successful introgression of the locusFhb1 (the best validated gene for FHB resistance from Sumai 3) into local backgrounds by marker assisted selection, and more briefly, the recent progress in the identification of alternative sources of FHB, future projects for QTL mapping, and the development of molecular tools for marker assisted selection.