Kelly Breeds and Mignon de Jager recently visited SABBI to prepare for the barley field trials taking place in Greytown later in the year. As part of a Winter Cereal Trust funded project (WCT/B/2018/02), two mapping populations have been developed using accessions that provide resistance against stem rust, but do not carry the well-known Rpg1 and rpg4/Rpg5 genes. With the objective of characterizing the number and chromosomal location of genes/quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling this resistance, phenotypic data will be collected for these populations over the next few years. This project draws on the strengths of many people and organisations, with SABBI having developed the populations, CenGen managing the project and performing the genotyping, Prof Brian Steffenson (University of Minnesota, USA), Dr Willem Boshoff and Prof Zakkie Pretorius (University of Free State) doing the phenotyping, and Corteva AgriscienceTM providing field trial space and maintenance in South Africa.
