*Wheat Research Station, Mahabaleswar (Satara).
IARI Wheat Breeding Station, Indore
Online published on 25 January, 2012.
One thousand entries of germ plasm of exotic durum maintained at Indore centre, were screened under natural conditions for rusts, smut, powdery mildew and leaf blight; and in the glasshouse for individual races of leaf and stem rusts and foot-rot. For field screening entries were sown in “hot spots”—Indore, Dholakuan, Ludhiana and Ropar, Mahabaleswar and Wellington from 1973 to 1975 under medium fertility conditions.
Out of these one thousand entries, 17 were found promising for rusts and smut. ED nos. 76, 82, 155, 375, 784 A and 1096 appeared resistant to both leaf and stem rusts in the field and also in the glasshouse to many races, thus showing horizontal resistance. ED 404 possesses excellent field resistance to all the 3 wheat rusts, but shows susceptibility to many individual races of leaf and stem rusts at the seedling stage. Other entries show resistance to one or the other rusts indicating vertical resistance in them at the adult stage. All these entries are late maturing and escape smut infection. ED nos. 78, 375 and 404 also exhibit excellent resistance to powdery mildew. ED 76 is resistant to leaf blight and ED 89 moderately susceptible to it. For foot-rot, ED 388 manifests resistance and ED nos. 76, 80, 89, 91, 103 and 155 moderate resistance.
