Analysis of Fusarium ear rot and fumonisin contamination in testcrosses of a maize biparental population

Abstract Fusarium ear rot (FER) negatively affects maize production worldwide and poses a serious threat to human health for producing mycotoxins. The objectives of our study were to assess the factors affecting FER and fumonisin contamination in testcrosses of a maize population. In the trials, seeds of 191 testcrosses of IBMSyn4, 11 checks and 2 replications of parental lines (a total of 216 hybrids) were sown in three environments, in 2014 and 2015. FER disease intensity (DI), fumonisin contamination (FUMc) and number of ears with signs of European corn borer (ECB) attack were measured. Strong phenotypic and weak genetic correlations between DI, FUMc and ECB indicate randomness in the interaction of those traits. We detected three QTLs (chr.1, 2 and 6) for DI (LOD scores 3.77-5.06). The QTL on chr.2, confirmed across the environments, can serve as a guideline in breeding for FER resistance.