The action of three Beet yellows virus resistance QTLs depends on alleles at a novel genetic locus that controls symptom development

Beet yellows virus (BYV) can dramatically reduce yield from sugar beet crops. A BYV resistant plant from a Beta germplasm accession was crossed with a sugar beet plant to generate the segregating population BYV1. This population was evaluated for BYV resistance and analysed with amplified fragment length polymorphism and single-nucleotide polymorphism markers to identify resistance loci. At 2 weeks after inoculation a number of plants displayed either mosaic or vein-clearing disease symptoms on infected leaves. The locus that largely controlled this disease reaction was mapped to chromosome IV. We refer to this novel genetic locus as Vc1 . Three BYV resistance quantitative trait loci (QTLs) were identified and mapped to chromosomes III, V and VI. QTL mapping results suggested that the chromosome III and V QTLs acted only in plants with mosaic symptoms and that the chromosome VI QTL acted only in plants with the mosaic symptom allele of Vc1 . These findings agreed with further statistical tests using general linear model analysis. There is now the potential to breed for BYV resistance using molecular marker technology.