The inheritance of stem rust resistance in Thatcher wheat

Thatcher was the predominant wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivar on the Canadian prairies in the 1950s. Until race 15B (TMH) of stem rust (Puccinia graminis pers. f. sp. tritici Eriks. sr Henn.) became widespread, Thatcher had good resistance to stem rust, but was susceptible to leaf rust (P. recondita f. sp. tritici Rob. ex Desm.). Although genes for stem rust resistance have been identified in Thatcher, the inheritance of its resistance has never been fully understood. The objective of this research was to attempt to elucidate the inheritance of the resistance of Thatcher and to determine why it had a reputation as a poor parent for rust resistance. Over a period of 40 yr, crosses and backcrosses to a susceptible genotype and two sets of single seed descent (SSD) lines were studied. The second set of SSD lines was tested with isolates of six races of stem rust to which Thatcher is resistant. The data showed that Thatcher is a very heterogenous cultivar with individual plants differing widely in the genes for stem rust resistance that they carry. The inheritance of rust resistance varied greatly from race to rate and was often quite complex. Either complementary genes or a gene plus a suppressor appeared to condition resistance to one race. Most genes gave resistance to only one race. The presence of Sr5,which Thatcher is known to have obtained from Kanred, was confirmed. Most of its many additional genes probably came from Iumillo durum wheat.