Towards generating multiple-fungal resistance in lentil

小扁豆（Lens culinaris Medik.）是加拿大大草原上仅次于豌豆的第二大豆类作物，加拿大是世界上最大的小扁豆出口国。加拿大扁豆在世界市场上的竞争力高度依赖于保持较高的种子质量和产量，同时努力降低生产成本。尽管越来越多地使用杀菌剂，但主要有三种疾病，即青叶枯病、炭疽病和茎枯病，仍然是实现这一目标的主要障碍。控制这些疾病的最经济和最环保的方法是开发具有持久抗性的品种。由于栽培扁豆品种的抗性来源已经枯竭或不可用，我们一直在筛选这些抗性基因的野生近缘基因，这些基因可以与栽培扁豆杂交，通过常规杂交将抗性基因转移到扁豆中。为了简化这一过程并提高效率，我们建议通过各种分子技术来识别最有希望的野生扁豆物种之一的抗性基因，这些技术允许我们开发标签，然后可以用来识别这些杂交后代中的这些个体，以便进一步培育出新品种。同时，我们也建议开展研究，阐明这些抗性基因的作用机制。了解这一机制将使我们能够选择那些最有可能在扁豆田长期有效的方法。这样，我们就可以在新一代扁豆品种中利用和组合这些基因。从长远来看，我们预计这将减少在小扁豆田施用农药的需求，并保持小扁豆作为轮作作物的吸引力。这反过来又会减少对矿物氮肥的依赖，因为扁豆可以从空气中固定氮，从而具有环境效益。更好的抗病性将保护产量和小扁豆种子质量，从而确保加拿大农民的收入，确保加拿大保持其第一大出口国的地位，并因此保持加拿大对世界粮食安全，特别是对许多不发达国家粮食安全的贡献。

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) is the second most important pulse crop after pea grown on the Canadian Prairies, and Canada is the world's largest lentil exporter. Competitiveness of Canadian lentil in the world market is highly dependent on maintaining high seed quality and yields whilst simultaneously striving at reducing production costs. Primarily three diseases, ascochyta blight, anthracnose and stemphylium blight, remain a major impediment to this goal despite an increasing use of fungicides. The most economical and environmentally-friendly way of managing these diseases is the development of varieties with durable resistance. Since resistance sources in the cultivated lentil species have been exhausted or are unavailable, we have been screening wild relatives for such resistance genes that can be hybridized with the cultivated lentil to transfer the resistance gene into lentil through conventional crossing. To simplify this process and make it more efficient, we propose to identify the resistance genes in one of the most promising wild lentil species through various molecular techniques that allow us to develop tags that can then be used to identify those individuals in the offspring of such crosses for further breeding into new varieties. At the same time, we also propose to conduct research that elucidates the mechanisms of how these resistance genes function. Understanding the mechanism will allow us to pick those that are most likely to be most effective over long periods of time in lentil fields. In doing so, we can utilize and combine these genes in a new generation of lentil varieties. In the long run, we anticipate that this will reduce the need for pesticide applications in lentil fields, and preserve the attractiveness of lentil as a rotational crop. This in turn will have the environmental benefits of reducing the reliance on mineral nitrogen fertilizer as lentil can fix nitrogen from the air. Better disease resistance will protect yield and lentil seed quality, thereby securing the income of Canadian farmers, ensuring that Canada will maintain its position as the number 1 exporter, and as such, maintain Canada's contribution to world food security, in particular in many underdeveloped countries.