This project centers around the development and utilization of molecular markers for oat and barley improvement. Many of these markers have been mapped to oat and barley through large cooperative projects. In addition to the mapping efforts, cooperative work is being conducted to associate markers to crown rust resistance genes in oat.
Crown rust is the most devastating disease in oat in the United States.
Use of markers would allow breeders to efficiently incorporate several genes for resistance into a single cultivar. Another application of marker technology has been the identification of markers that enables one to distinguish closely related malting barley cultivars that differ in malting quality characteristics. Such markers will be useful to the malting barley industry to monitor seed lots and verify varietal purity. Field tests are underway to determine forage use potential among several oat, barley, and triticale cultivars.