Breeding Winter Wheat for Resistance to Stinking Smut (Tilletia levis and Tilletia tritici)

Several productive lines of hard red winter wheat which are highly resistant to both species of stinking smut (Tilletia levis and T. tritici) have been isolated from the Turkey variety. Artificial-smut and stem-rust epidemics and controlled freezing have been found useful supplements to field-performance tests. Differential reactions of the new Turkey selections and a number of hybrid selections and established resistant varieties to collections of bunt from a number of states give definite evidence of the occurrence of mild and virulent physiologic forms of both species. Certain selections have proved very resistant to some of the smut collections and rather susceptible to others. Some of them are so resistant to all collections tested that annual seed treatment for the prevention of smut would appear unnecessary. In case continued yield tests substantiate present indications, one or more of these new selections will merit extensive trial