Partial Crown Rust Nursery Announcement

At the May 2002 American Oat Workers Conference Dr. Greg Shaner proposed that a nursery to assess partial resistance to crown rust be initiated and ARS-Aberdeen was assigned to coordinate the effort. At present 12 nursery sites in the US and Canada have been identified and international sites are being sought. As of October 15, Ron Barnett, Steve Harrison, Jean-Luc Jannink, Paul Murphy, Brian Rossnagel, Greg Shaner, and Deon Stuthman have submitted entries for testing this winter in the southern US. A second nursery will be sent out in the spring of 2003.

Entries will be scored several times during the cropping season for crown rust infection type and disease severity. It may not be possible to distinguish between low disease caused by partial resistance and low disease caused by a low frequency of matching pathogen races. Therefore, the low-disease types will be further evaluated at both seedling and adult growth stages to confirm the presence of partial resistance. James Chong and ARS-Aberdeen have volunteered to do the follow-up greenhouse testing; other collaborators are also welcome to help with this work.

If you wish to submit 7-10 entries for testing this winter, please forward 100 gm of seed by November 1 via UPS, Fed Ex, or DHL to:

Mike Bonman

USDA ARS

1691 South 2700 West

Aberdeen, ID 83210

Return to the Table of Contents