engleski

Field screening maize germplasm for resistance and tolerance to Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte in Croatia

Developing and releasing of commercial maize hybrids with higher level of host-plant resistance and tolerance would reduce the amount of insecticides and could be a sustainable alternative to transgenic approaches for fighting Diabrotica. As part of resistance breeding program at the Agricultural institute Osijek, Croatia, 127 maize genotypes belonging to various maize gene-pools were screened for reduced root damage (resistance trait) and for increased compensatory root growth (tolerance trait) in 2007. The experiment was conducted in two replications as an alpha design planted at two locations under continuous maize growing conditions in Eastern Croatia, a major maize production area with natural Diabrotica occurrence. For assessing resistance of maize genotypes, the Iowa Node Injury Scale (0-3) was applied, while for assessing tolerance Visual Scale (1-6) was used for compensatory root growth. Across the two locations, maize genotypes varied significantly from 0.4 to 2.4 for root damage and from 1.1 to 6.0 for compensatory root growth indicating feasible genetic variability for both traits. However, there was practically no correlation between the two traits with r=0.10. Based on these results, there is potential to improve maize resistance and tolerance to Diabrotica in Europe although root damage and compensatory root growth are not correlated.

Western corn rootworm ; resistance ; screening

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