ABSTRACT
Maize accessions were evaluated in 1997, 1998, and 1999 to identify additional sources of Stewart's wilt resistance and to determine if reactions differed among accessions collected from various regions of the United States and throughout the world. The distributions of Stewart's wilt reactions rated from 1 (no appreciable spread of symptoms) to 9 (dead plants) were relatively similar among groups of accessions from all regions of the world except for those from the Mid-Atlantic/Ohio River Valley region of the United States, the southern United States, and the northeastern United States. The mean and median Stewart's wilt rating for 1,991 accessions evaluated in 1997 was 4. The mean Stewart's wilt rating for 245 accessions collected from the Mid-Atlantic/Ohio River Valley region was 3.1, which was significantly lower than that for accessions from all other regions. The mean rating for accessions from the southern United States was 3.7, which also was lower than mean ratings for accessions from all other regions. Ratings from trials in 1997 and 1998 were highly correlated (r = 0.87) for 292 accessions and 15 sweet corn hybrid checks evaluated in both years. Of 20 accessions rated below 2 in 1997 and 1998, seven were from Virginia, seven were from the Ohio River Valley or central Corn Belt of the United States, four were from the northern or western Corn Belt of the United States, and two were from Spain. Ratings for these accessions ranged from 1.7 to 3.1 in 1999. Ratings ranged from 2.6 to 3.7 for F1 hybrids of these accessions crossed with one of two susceptible sweet corn inbreds, CrseW30 or Crse16, which were rated 5.7 and 5.4, respectively. Based on the reactions of this collection of germ plasm, it appears that high levels of Stewart's wilt resistance are prevalent only among accessions collected from areas where the disease has been endemic for several years, whereas moderate levels of resistance can be found in accessions collected from nearly everywhere in the world.
