Genetic diagnostic markers are being developed by the Texas A&M AgriLife
Research to identify wheat streak mosaic virus resistance. The study, which
includes AgriLife Research and Kansas State University scientists will
provide wheat breeders a new tool to breed wheat varieties resistant to the
region's most prevalent disease.

Several resistance genes to wheat streak mosaic are available, but only one
gene, Wsm2, is from wheat, the others are from related species. The research
team bred Wsm2 into two wheat cultivars, RonL and Snowmass. Silvano Ocheya,
a member of the research team, is using wheat population derived from
CO960293-2 and TAM 111 to map the drought tolerance genes in TAM 111 and
identify tightly-linked single nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) markers for
drought tolerance genes and Wsm2. Ocheya mapped about 5,000 SNP onto the
whole wheat genome, and several tightly linked SNP markers to the Wsm2 gene
were found.


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