USDA ARS PROJECTS

USDA ARS PROJECTS

We are working to meet the goals as outlined in our Mission Statement:

  1. Enhance Grain Quality
    • Determine major genes that account for significant variation of end-use quality including those that affect preharvest sprouting.
    • Elucidate the environmental, genetic, biochemical and molecular basis of wheat quality considering both domestic and foreign utilization.
    • Assess end-use quality of experimental wheat lines to support release of superior wheat cultivars.

  2. Improve Environmental Stress Tolerance
    • Develop and characterize special genetic stocks, near-isogenic lines (NILs), for important traits that affect environmental stress tolerance and adaptation to specific agricultural environments.
    • Complete breeding of NILs for environmental stress traits for each of the major Pacific Northwest (PNW) wheat market classes.
    • Identify genes that account for significant genetic differences in environmental stress tolerance.

  3. Improve Disease Control and Reduce Reliance on Pesticides
    • Determine and exploit new information on the epidemiological, morphological, cytological, and genetical characteristics of rust resistance to improve disease control.
    • Combine resistance to Cephalosporium stripe, strawbreaker foot rot, stripe rust, leaf rust and other diseases in wheat genotypes.
    • Determine morphological, cytological and genetic resistance of barley stripe rust.
    • Use genetic diversity for disease resistance to obtain durable resistance to critical diseases of the PNW.

  4. Enhance Wheat Germplasm Using Innovative Methods
    • Develop the use of gene-specific primers in the polymerase chain reaction to identify DNA polymorphisms including use of minisatellite DNA among wheat genotypes for mapping and tagging of desired traits.
    • Use DNA hybridization and RFLP markers to tag, map and transfer genes for disease resistance and winter hardiness.

  5. Develop and Improve Integrated Systems for Sustainable Wheat Production
    • Develop an expert system for integrated, sustainable management of disease, insect, and environmental stress in wheat that is economically and environmentally viable.
    • Reduce need for chemical control of weeds by developing wheats that compete well with weeds. Desired traits will be rapid growth, high biomass, and dense canopy traits.
    • Reduce soil erosion by developing wheats for early seeding that are genetically resistant to diseases associated with early seeding, and that emerge and establish stands rapidly.

Current Program:

This unit focuses on many aspects of PNW wheat production and utilization. The majority of PNW wheats are white and tend to be vulnerable to preharvest sprouting, soilborne foliar diseases and cold injury. Unique to the research program is the enhancement of germplasm for club wheats, which are in high demand for export. Our unit scientists have a rare combination of skills that enable us to act as a multi-disciplinary team working on germplasm enhancement and improvement of grain quality.

Kimberly G. Campbell----Research Geneticist
Xianming Chen-----------Research Plant Pathologist
Craig F. Morris---------Supervisory Research Cereal Chemist and Director 
                          of the Western Wheat Quality Laboratory
Daniel Z. Skinner-------Research Leader and Research Plant Pathologist
Camille M. Steber-------Research Molecular Geneticist
Robert E. Allan---------Research Geneticist (Retired-Collaborator)
Roland F. Line----------Research Plant Pathologist (Retired-Collaborator)

Program Impact

Cultivars developed by this unit with strawbreaker foot rot resistance and multilines with stable resistance to stripe and leaf rust account for 65% of U.S. club wheat production. In 1994 the cultivar Madsen, developed by R.E. Allan, was the most widely grown cultivar in Washington. R.E. Allan has compiled databases and developed special genetic stocks (NILs) for many genetic traits (genes affecting coldhardiness, vernalization, grain dormancy, photoperiod response, grain hardiness, soft wheat quality, plant stature, seedling vigor, and resistance to several pathogens). Molecular markers linked to foot rot resistance and adaptation to reduced tillage have been identified and incorporated into breeding programs. These genetic stocks are now being exploited by C.F. Morris and Dan Skinner in efforts to tag grain quality and winter hardiness genes. Dr. Chen is the only scientist in the western USA working on rusts and smuts, even though the rusts are the most important wheat diseases in the region and the smuts affect the wheat export market. R.F. Line has compiled data on the characteristics of genes for specific and non-specific resistances to stripe and leaf rusts, as well as for epidemiological and control of rusts. Using this data, R.F. Line has developed a computerized, expert advisory system to manage rusts and other wheat diseases called MoreCrop. (Information on MoreCrop and how to download the software can be obtained from this link.) The Western Wheat Quality Laboratory, directed by C.F. Morris, assesses wheat quality and determines wheat and flour requirements for domestic and foreign uses of wheat. The Quality Laboratory has cooperated in the development of nearly every Pacific Northwest wheat cultivar since the founding of the lab in the late 1940's.
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