Inducing novel broad spectrum disease resistance in wheat

Arbuscular mycorrhizas are an ancient symbiosis between land plants and fungi in which the fungal partner provides the plant with inorganic nutrients from the soil in return for carbon fixed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. In addition there is increasing evidence that mycorrhizal fungi induce broad spectrum resistance against pathogens, so suppression of these associations by breeding and management practices may have lost the benefits of this symbiosis.
Currently commercial wheat varieties have been selected to have very high yield potential and adequate disease resistance when grown in modern high intensive, short rotation systems. Positive selection for the ability to form a mycorrhizal association is therefore unlikely to occur.
The project is investigating the differential responses of wheat cultivars to mycorrhizal colonisation that could provide a new source of resistance to pathogens. Once differential responses to mycorrhizal colonisation have been indentified, the genetic elements controlling responses will be genetically marked to enable the trait to be introduced into commercial germplasm.