Breeding against white rust of mustard in India

Aniruddha Maity and Amrit Lamichaney

Division of Seed Science and Technology Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi

Depending on the severity of infection, the yield loss caused by white rust (Albugo candida (Pers.) Kuntze) ranges between 17 to 60% which is of great concern. For resistance sources, wide range of Brassica juncea germplasms against most of the available virulent A. candida isolates worldwide has been screened. Resistance to white rust in brassica is governed by single dominant major gene in B juncea against race 2, 3 dominant genes in B napus against race 7 and by dominant duplicate genes in B napus against race 2 infecting B juncea have been identified. Cultivars Towers 1, 2, 3, 4 Gullivar, Midas, Norin, Regent, H-715 and HNS-1 of B. napus, all accessions of B. alba and HC-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of B. carinnata have resistance to A. candida. In B. campestris var yellow sarson type 6, PYS 6, Tobin etc are reported to be resistant. Cultivar BSH 1 and BS 15 of B campestris var brown sarson are resistant against different pathotypes. In B juncea P.L. 347618, T4, YRT-3, Domo, Domo 4, Lethbridge, EC 126746, EC 126741, EC 128743, EC 126743-1, EC 126126, EC 129121, EC 399301, RC 781, RC 1001, RC 1401, RC 1405, RC 1408, RC 1424, RC 1425, RC 1449, RH 8541-46, RH 8159, PHR 1, CSR 43, PWR 9541, RGN 11, Metapolka, Zem 1, Newton, Blaze have shown a high degree of resistance. The resistant lines to different isolates of A. candida derived from B. juncea, B. rapa and B. oleracea, have been used as donors to generate putative homozygous line with combined resistance to different white rust pathotypes in B. juncea. Two accessions of Brassica juncea from Canada viz. L-4 and R-908 possess high resistance to white rust, using these sources the number of resistant lines in the background of high yielding popular cultivars such as Pusa bold, Varuna and Rohini have been developed following back cross methodology. Important among them are JMMWR93-7, JMMWR-93-19 and JMMWR-93-38 which have resistance consistently. One of this JMMWR93-39 has been released as Jawar Mustard-1 in 1999 for cultivation combining high yields with white rust resistance. The results of inter specific hybridization between B juncea and B carinata envisaged easy transfer of white rust resistance into high seed yield background through pedigree selection from an unadopted species B carinata to the adopted species B juncea. The resistance which is monogenic with complete dominance in B carinata has been partially introgressed into B juncea cultivars by selection in hotspot and their repeated back crossing to B juncea cultivars. The newly released hybrids of B. juncea NRCHB506 and NRCHB101 (2008) have a comparable degree of resistance against A.

candida. Further intensive researches are going on this aspect, which are furnished to combine the other quantitative and qualitative characters with the disease resistance.