To study the inheritance of resistance in wheat to Fusarium graminearum, si
x resistant cultivars from China were crossed to two susceptible cultivars.
The parents and their progenies were evaluated in the greenhouse for resis
tance to the spread of scab within a spike. A central floret was inoculated
by injecting a droplet of inoculum at the time of anthesis. Inoculated pla
nts were kept in a moist chamber for three subsequent nights. The proportio
n of scabbed spikelets was recorded six-times from 3-days to 21-days after
inoculation, and the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) was calc
ulated from these proportions. One to three genes, depending on the cultiva
r, conditioned resistance to scab as reflected by the AUDPC. A simple addit
ive-dominance effect model fitted the segregation data for 8 of the 11 cros
ses. Dominance and epistatic effects were significant in a few crosses. The
se effects increased resistance in some crosses but decreased resistance in
others. However, relative to additive effects, dominant and epistatic effe
cts accounted for only a small portion of the genetic effects in the popula
tions evaluated. The importance of additive effects means that it should be
possible to accumulate different genes to enhance resistance to scab in wh
eat.