Resistance to Sclerotinia
stem rot in Brassica
Andrew Taylor and John Clarkson, Warwick Crop Centre
School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Wellesbourne, Warwick, CV35 9EF, UK
Background
• Sclerotinia sclerotiorum causes
disease in many crops including
Brassicas.
• Leaves and stems are affected
reducing yields in crops such as
oilseed rape.
• The fungus infects plants through
airborne ascospores released by
mushroom
like
apothecia
produced by sclerotia (resting
bodies) residing in the soil.
Stem rot symptoms on oilseed rape
Apothecia of S. sclerotiorum
Identifying resistance
• A range of resistance was identified within 96 lines from a Brassica napus diversity set using a test on
young plants.
• Twenty lines were then tested for resistance at the mature (flowering) plant stage by inoculating stems
with an agar plug of S. sclerotiorum.
• Resistant lines resulted in smaller stem lesion sizes.
• Further work aims to exploit these lines further and look for
other and potentially stronger sources of resistance in wild
Brassica species.
Lesion size (mm)
250
Resistant
Susceptible
200
150
100
50
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Brassica line
Stem lesion size for 20 B. napus lines
Resistant (left) and susceptible (right) lines of B. napus
Warwick Crop Centre
www.warwick.ac.uk/go/wcc