Resistance of hulless oats to smut fungi in Western Siberia

The work presents the results of the study of naked oat samples from the world collection of The N.I. Vavilov All Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources and locally bred varieties for resistance to smut diseases. The research was carried out in 2008-2018 in the eld experiment against an arti cial infection background. It was noted that during the growing season meteorological factors affected the extent of lesion of naked oats with the disease. A higher degree of lesion was observed in years with suf cient and excessive moisture supply alongside increased air temperatures, whereas less damage was discovered under dry conditions. The results of phytopathological analysis of 230 collection samples of hulless oats in 2008–2011 revealed that mid-ripening specimens are more susceptible to damage by smut fungi (27.2% on average in the group). With an increase in the length of the growing season, susceptibility to the pathogen decreases. The degree of lesion in midlate samples was 26.5%, on average in the group, in late-ripening – 25.4%, in very late-ripening – 20.0%. During further study (2012–2018) of 35 resistant samples of this collection, a decrease in resistance to the pathogen was noted. Immune samples characterized by high panicle structure, large size of grain and lodging resistance were selected and included in the cross-breeding program to produce high-yielding genotypes resistant to local populations of smut fungi. As a result, a new variety of naked oats Ofenya was created, surpassing the standard recognized variety in terms of yield, technological, biochemical parameters, as well as resistant to lodging and smut.