Texas A&M AgriLife Research says it has started the next phase of a project to breed spinach varieties resistant to common diseases.
The university said this research is part of a four-year, multi-institute project funded by a $3.57 million grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative.
Carlos Avila, an AgriLife Research associate professor in vegetable breeding, leads the team at Texas A&M.
“Developing disease-resistant spinach varieties is a diverse problem,” Avila said in a Texas A&M blog post. “We have teams of breeders, plant pathologists and agricultural economists that will be concentrating on regional spinach diseases and their effects. This is a collaborative effort, and it’s important and exciting that we have people with varied expertise focused on a specific challenge.”
Ainong Shi, a vegetable breeder and professor of horticulture for the University of Arkansas, is leading the collaborative project, with additional research teams from Washington State University, the University of Arizona, the University of Massachusetts and the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Salinas, Calif.
The team will look at diseases that trouble spinach growers across the country, including white rust, Anthracnose and Sstemphylium leaf spot, downy mildew and Fusarium wilt, according to the blog post.
“Spinach is a difficult crop to breed, and it’s traditionally been a time-consuming process,” Avila said. “That’s why, in this project, we’re using molecular breeding techniques that accelerate the process.”
Texas A&M said the research team identified molecular markers with Fusarium wilt, downy mildew and white rust resistance. The next steps of the program will be to validate the markers and select the spinach varieties with the most effective resistance, according to the blog post. The research team also looks to expand its study to include Stemphylium wilt and Anthracnose resistance.
