Since first appearing in Australian commercial lupin crops in 1996, anthracnose has become a serious threat to lupin growing in the high rainfall areas of Western Autralia and where sandplain blue lupins grow wild.

Anthracnose and phomopsis are now the major disease resistance breeding targets for the Australian Co-ordinated Lupin Improvement Program (ACLIP).

Research, supported by growers and the Federal Government through the Grains Research and Development Corporation, is therefore working towards improving knowledge of the anthracnose pathogen and the disease’s development.

Supervised by Western Autralia Department of Agriculture senior plant breeder, Dr Bevan Buirchell, the research will improve disease resistant screening methods for the breeding program.

By determining the genetic basis of resistance and developing molecular markers tagging resistance genes, ACLIP will have an early generation selection tool to accelerate the breeding cycle and allow breeders to focus on increasing yield and seed quality.

Already, two co-dominant markers have been established and are tagging the anthracnose gene in the Tanjil cultivar. These markers have been used in the lupin breeding program to identify parents and crosses for screening.

However, it was found that there was a range of resistance to anthracnose in Lupinus angustifolius (narrow leaf lupin). Tanjil is one of the most resistant cultivars, while Kalya is moderately resistant, Merrit has low resistance and Unicrop is highly susceptible.

Molecular markers tagging resistance found that the resistance gene in Tanjil was different to that in Merrit, suggesting there may be different genes involved in anthracnose infection in the stems and growing points.

Anthracnose resistance is controlled by a single gene, rather than quantitatively, making it easier to select cultivars with high resistance to ensure the trait will be fixed for future generations.

Further research will investigate if anthracnose resistance is temperature sensitive and can be diminished at temperatures above 24 degrees celsius, as this has implications for late infections and high temperatures in spring.