A Quantitative Genetic Study of Sclerotinia Head Rot Resistance Introgressed from the Wild Perennial Helianthus maximiliani into Cultivated Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.)

Sclerotinia head rot (HR), caused by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, is an economically important disease of sunflower with known detrimental effects on yield and quality in humid climates worldwide. The objective of this study was to gain insight into the genetic architecture of HR resistance from a sunflower line HR21 harboring HR resistance introgressed from the wild perennial Helianthus maximiliani. An F(2) population derived from the cross of HA 234 (susceptible-line)/HR21 (resistant-line) was evaluated for HR resistance at two locations during 2019–2020. Highly significant genetic variations (p < 0.001) were observed for HR disease incidence (DI) and disease severity (DS) in both individual and combined analyses. Broad sense heritability (H(2)) estimates across environments for DI and DS were 0.51 and 0.62, respectively. A high-density genetic map of 1420.287 cM was constructed with 6315 SNP/InDel markers developed using genotype-by-sequencing technology. A total of 16 genomic regions on eight sunflower chromosomes, 1, 2, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 were associated with HR resistance, each explaining between 3.97 to 16.67% of the phenotypic variance for HR resistance. Eleven of these QTL had resistance alleles from the HR21 parent. Molecular markers flanking the QTL will facilitate marker-assisted selection breeding for HR resistance in sunflower.