Identification of Resistant Maize Germplasm for Southern Leaf Blight and Physiological Characteristics Measurement
Two hundred excellent inbred lines of maize were used as materials,and the field inoculation of SLB pathogen were conducted during the summers of 2022 and 2023,respectively.Three highly resistant inbred lines,namely K22,CML50,and Qi319,were identified and 24 resistant inbred lines,including Mo 17,were screened based on the two-year data.Additionally,two maize inbred lines with different levels of resistance,K22 and B73,were selected for indoor inoculations with the SLB pathogen and the results showed that the various indexes of leaf lesion number,leaf lesion area and leaf lesion area ratio for K22 were significantly better than those for B73 at 48 and 72 hours,which furtherly validated the accuracy of field identification.The activity increase of 5 defense en-zymes ranged from 14.32 to 70.45%in the highly resistant inbred line K22 compared to the susceptible control B73 while 48 or 72 hours.