美国农业部网12月4日消息，农业研究服务局的科学家们新研制出一种冬小麦新品种'梅斯' ，可以抵御小麦花叶病毒（wsmv），为小麦种植者带来福音。植物遗传学家罗伯特称，这种冬小麦含有一种萨摩亚 -1基因，可以对抗通过小麦卷曲螨传播的小麦花叶病毒，比以往喷洒农药的方法来防止病毒的转递更有效。科学家们通过两年的实地试验种植阶段发现，梅斯在小麦花叶病毒感染区域优势明显，它的产量是其他小麦品种的2到3倍。（国际情报室译）
【原文】
Scientists Set to Release New Disease-Resistant Wheat
By Jan Suszkiw
December 4, 2007
'Mace', a new winter wheat cultivar developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators, could give growers an added measure of insurance against outbreaks of wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV).
According to ARS plant geneticist Robert Graybosch, Mace harbors a gene called Wsm-1 that confers resistance to the virus, which is spread by the wheat curl mite, Aceria tosichella.
Spraying pesticide to prevent the mite from feeding and transmitting WSMV isn't particularly effective, so growers typically resort to using a combination of strategies, such as controlling weedy grasses and "volunteer" wheat. Both are sources of WSMV that the mites can acquire through feeding.
Even then, outbreaks of the virus can still occur. In the Great Plains, yearly outbreaks of WSMV claim about five percent of the region's wheat crop. Losses can be higher, as was the case in 1995, when an outbreak in Montana caused $35 million in yield losses there.
This winter, following more than 10 years of research, development and evaluation, Mace will be made available to wheat breeders and growers as foundation seed. 'RonL', a Kansas State University release, is the only other U.S. wheat cultivar with resistance to WSMV. However, this resistance seems to fade when temperatures climb to 70 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, notes Graybosch. He works at the ARS Grain, Forage and Bioenergy Research Unit in Lincoln, Neb.
Temperature sensitivity isn't an issue with Mace, which inherited its virus resistance from CI 17884, a wheat germplasm line that carries a chromosome for the trait from an intermediate wheatgrass. Graybosch codeveloped and tested the new wheat line with scientists at the ARS Lincoln unit, the University of Nebraska, and Kansas State University.
In two years of field trials at sites throughout Nebraksa, Mace produced grain yields equal to 'Wesley' and 'Millennium', two commercial varieties. In virus-infected fields, however, Mace's yields were two to three times higher than these and other commercial varieties the scientists used for comparison.
