ABSTRACT
Crown rust (Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae) is considered the most damaging disease of oat and the use of race-specific seedling (Pc) genes for resistance has been the primary means of control. As these resistance genes from cultivated oat, Avena sativa, and the wild hexaploid animated oat, A. sterilis, were deployed in oat cultivars, corresponding virulence in the U.S. crown rust population increased rapidly, such that the effective lifespan of a resistant cultivar in the United States is now 5 years or less. Introgression of resistance from diploid and tetraploid Avena spp. into hexaploid oat has been difficult due to the difference in ploidy levels and the lack of pairing of homeologous chromosomes between species. The wild tetraploid slender oat, A. barbata, has been a source of powdery mildew and stem rust resistance in cultivated oat but has largely been unexploited for crown rust resistance. A relatively high percentage of A. barbata accessions from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Small Grains Collection were resistant to a highly diverse crown rust population in recent tests. Tests of 1,099 A. barbata accessions from the Canadian Plant Gene Resources Center not represented in the USDA collection revealed that a similar percentage (11.4%) were at least moderately resistant at the seedling and adult plant stage when tested with a highly diverse bulk inoculum derived from the St. Paul buckthorn nursery. Eighteen accessions were rated as highly resistant or a mix of highly resistant and resistant plants in both seedling and adult plant tests. Three accessions (CN21531 from Italy and CN26271 and CN26305 from Spain) displayed a unique “blotchy” resistant reaction as adult plants. Resistant accessions were found from throughout much of the natural range of A. barbata but the Western Mediterranean and Lebanon had the highest frequency of accessions with broad-spectrum resistance.
