Breeding perennial ryegrass for resisance to gray leaf spot

Gray leaf spot, caused by the fungus Pyricularia grisea (Cooke) Sacc. [teleomorph Magnaporthe grisea (T.T. Herbert) Yaegashi & Udagawa], can be a devastating disease on perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.). The identification and utilization of perennial ryegrass cultivars with improved resistance to gray leaf spot would reduce the need for fungicide applications. The objectives of this study were to: (i) evaluate cultivars, experimental selections, and single-plot progenies of perennial ryegrass for resistance to gray leaf spot, (ii) develop populations from selected resistant parents to determine improvements in the next generation, and (iii) determine heritability and the response to selection for gray leaf spot resistance in perennial ryegrass populations. Two perennial ryegrass field experiments consisting of commercial cultivars and experimental selections, were established in 2000 and 2001 at Adelphia, NJ. Susceptibility of germplasm to gray leaf spot was evaluated following ephemeral natural outbreaks of the disease that occurred three to four weeks post seeding. Parents with improved resistance to gray leaf spot were selected based on progeny turf plot evaluations in 2000, inter-pollinated and seeded into turf plots in the 2001 experiment. Most cultivars and selections evaluated in both experiments had greater than 50% gray leaf spot disease. The high broad-sense heritability estimate (0.92) and similar response of progeny compared to selected parents indicated that parent selection based on progeny tests was a good selection method to predict the combining ability of the parents. It also proved successful in improving gray leaf spot resistance in the next generation, which will be important for the development of more disease resistant cultivars.