Registration of WGC002 spring wheat containing wild grass-derived Fusarium head blight resistance gene Fhb7^The2

The USDA-ARS and North Dakota State University Agricultural Experiment Station jointly released the Fusarium head blight (FHB)-resistant spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) germplasm WGC002 (Reg. no. GP-1089, PI 702949) in May 2023. WGC002 is a wheat-Thinopyrum elongatum 7B-7E translocation line, designated 7BS7BL-7EL, with the wheat chromosome 7BL terminal region replaced by the homoeologous counterpart of the Th. elongatum chromosome 7EL that contains the novel FHB resistance gene Fhb7(The2). WGC002 was developed from the Chinese Spring (CS) wheat-Th. elongatum disomic substitution line DS 7E(7B) using our genomics-enabled chromosome engineering pipeline. The pedigree of WGC002 is DS 7E(7B)/2*CS ph1b mutant//DS 7E(7B). WGC002 has consistently exhibited resistance to FHB in inoculations of greenhouse grown plants. WGC002 does not contain the yellow flour pigment gene in the Fhb7(The2) haplotype present on the terminal 7EL segment of the 7BS7BL-7EL translocation and has not exhibited any obvious linkage drag on the 7EL segment. Therefore, WGC002 is ready for immediate use in wheat breeding. One sequence-tagged site (STS) and two polymerase chain reaction allelic competitive extension markers were developed specifically for Fhb7(The2) and validated in different wheat genotypes. They are highly diagnostic for Fhb7(The2) and extremely useful in marker-assisted introgression of Fhb7(The2) in wheat breeding. In summary, WGC002 is a new wild grass-derived FHB-resistant spring wheat germplasm with diagnostic DNA markers available to conduct marker-assisted selection of Fhb7(The2), that will enhance and diversify FHB resistance of wheat.