Genetic analysis of Fusarium head blight resistance in bread wheat

Seven spring wheat varieties were crossed in a half diallel mating system to assess the genetic parameters of some traits of resistance to Fusarium head blight (FHB) including disease incidence (DIC), disease severity (DSV), Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK), disease index (DI) and incidence severity kernels (ISK). Differences were found to be significant (p < 0.01) for all the characters. The significance of additive components (D) and dominant components (H-1, H-2) demonstrated the importance of both additive and dominance effects for all traits. The greater value of D over H-1 and H-2 demonstrated the additive nature of genes for all traits, which suggested the utilization of pedigree and full/sib selection for improvement of these parameters. All traits exhibited high narrow and broad sense heritability. Graphical representation demonstrated in DIC recessive alleles and in DSV, FDK, DI and ISK dominant alleles led to decreasing level of traits and increasing resistance to FHB.