Transgenic creeping bentgrass with delayed dollar spot symptoms

Creeping bentgrass (Agrostis palustris Huds) is an important turfgrass used on golf course greens and fairways. It is susceptible to a number of fungal pathogens and requires considerable fungicide use for disease control. Transgenic approaches may be useful in improving the level of disease resistance. We have generated transgenic creeping bentgrass plants expressing PR5K from Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Henyh. PR5K is a receptor protein kinase whose extracellular domain is homologous to the PR5 family of pathogenesis-related proteins. In a field test of plants inoculated with the fungal pathogen dollar spot (Sclerotinia homoeocarpa F.T. Bennett) four of the eight transgenic lines showed delays in disease expression of 29 to 45 days, relative to the control plants.