IDENTIFICATION OF POWDERY MILDEW RESISTANCE GENES IN POLISH COMMON OAT (Avena sativa L.) CULTIVARS USING HOST-PATHOGEN TESTS

The aim of the present study was to characterize and identify powdery mildew resistance genes in Polish common oat cultivars using host-pathogen tests. A differential set of six Blumeria graminis f.sp. avenae isolates virulent or avirulent to four cultivars and one line that has known resistance to powdery mildew were used. Among the investigated cultivars, only four of them (13.3%) had resistance patterns similar to genotypes belonging to the differential set. The resistance of OMR group 1 was found in the cultivar ‘Dragon’, while that of OMR2 in the cultivar ‘Skrzat’. The cultivars ‘Deresz ’ and ‘Hetman ’ showed a resistance pattern that corresponded with OMR group 3. The resistance corresponding to OMR4 was not found, which sugge-sts that until now this gene has not been used in Polish oat bre-eding programmes. The cultivar ‘Canyon ’ had a different pat-tern of resistance than the genotypes that have already known OMR genes, which indicates that the resistance of this cultivar is determined by a new gene or a combination of known genes. Key words: Blumeria graminis, Avena sativa L. cultivars, ge-netic resistance, host-pathogen test