Applied phenomics and genomics for improving barley yellow dwarf resistance in winter wheat

Barley yellow dwarf is one of the major viral diseases of cereals. Phenotyping barley yellow dwarf in wheat is extremely challenging due to similarities to other biotic and abiotic stresses. Breeding for resistance is additionally challenging as the wheat primary germplasm pool lacks genetic resistance, with most of the few resistance genes named to date originating from a wild relative species. The objectives of this study were to (1) evaluate the use of high-throughput phenotyping to improve barley yellow dwarf assessment; (2) identify genomic regions associated with barley yellow dwarf resistance, and (3) evaluate the ability of genomic selection models to predict barley yellow dwarf resistance. Up to 107 wheat lines were phenotyped during each of 5 field seasons under both insecticide treated and untreated plots. Across all seasons, barley yellow dwarf severity was lower within the insecticide treatment along with increased plant height and grain yield compared with untreated entr...