Powdery mildew is a key airborne foliar disease of barley in southeastern and southwestern China. Barley varieties usually partially or wholly lose resistance to the pathogen Blumeria graminis (DC.) f. sp. hordei (Bgh) three to five years after release due to the frequent acquirements of new virulences in the pathogen population. However, no Bgh virulence detection has been carried out in the recent decade, and thus no information is available on the present virulence components and major pathotypes in epidemic regions. Twenty-one near-isogenic lines (NILs) of Pallas were selected to detect Bgh virulence variation, with 97 pathotypes identified from the isolates collected from 2015 to 2019. The virulence complexities ranged from one to 12, with 1.5 isolates on average assigned per pathotype, suggesting a natural trait of high pathotype diversity and low virulence complexity (VC) in the Chinese Bgh populations. Eleven high virulence pathotypes were detected in the traditional barley-growing regions in Yunnan and Zhejiang. Six virulent pathotypes to resistance gene mlo-5 were detected only in the two traditional epidemic regions, with a virulence frequency (VF) of 4.8% (7/147). Compared to the results from a decade ago, VFs for resistance alleles Mla3, mlo-5, Mla6 + Mla14, Mla7 + Mlk, Mlg + MlCP, and Mla13 + MlRu3 + MlaRu4 increased from zero to 0.7 to 25.8%. Isolates from Yunnan and Zhejiang had similar virulence profiles, which differed from those identified in Tibet. In addition, genetic diversities differed in the isolate groups collected from Tibet, Yunnan, and Zhejiang.

Spot blotch, caused by the fungal pathogen Cochliobolus sativus, is a limiting factor for barley (Hordeum vulgare) production in northeast China, which causes significant grain yield losses and kernel quality degradation. It is critical to determine the virulence diversity of C. sativus populations for barley resistance breeding and the judicious grouping of available resistance varieties according to the predominant pathotypes in disease epidemic regions. With little information on the barley pathogen in China, this study selected 12 typical barley genotypes to differentiate the pathotypes of C. sativus isolates collected in China. Seventy-one isolates were grouped into 19 Chinese pathotypes based on infection responses. Seventeen isolates were classified as pathotype 3, which has only been identified in China, whereas most (52 of 71) were classified as pathotype 1. All of the tested isolates had low virulence on the North Dakota (ND) durable, resistant line ND B112. Using 22 selected amplified fragment-length polymorphism (AFLP) primer combinations, genetic polymorphism was used to analyze 68 isolates, which clustered into three distinct groups using the unweighted pair group method average with the genetic distance coefficient. No relationship was found between the virulence of isolates and their origins. Isolates of the same pathotype or those collected from the same location did not group into clusters based on the AFLP analysis.

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