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Quest is the first malting barley variety release from the University of Minnesota Agricultural Experiment
Station with improved Fusarium head blight resistance. Formerly known as experimental line M122, Quest is a spring, six-rowed malting barley that accumulates about half the level of deoxynivalenol (DON) compared to
the varieties Tradition, Lacey and Robust, which currently occupy nearly 70% of the barley acreage in the Midwest (Table 1). One of the parental sources of resistance in Quest, a two-rowed variety from China called
Zhedar 1, was introduced through a line selected from an early generation population created by Richard Horsley at North Dakota State University. The sharing of germplasm in this way has been extremely important to
scab resistance breeding efforts. The other source of resistance comes from the variety MNBrite which derives its resistance from a Swiss landrace called Chevron.
Quest has yield and grain protein levels similar to Lacey and Tradition (Table 1). Quest has just completed the first year of
plant-scale brewing evaluation in the American Malting Barley Association (AMBA) testing program. The pipeline for scab resistance in the Minnesota barley breeding program is full with all new variety candidates
entering the AMBA testing program having improved levels of scab resistance. Research leading to the development of new scab resistant varieties is supported by grants from AMBA, USDA-Wheat and Barley Scab
Initiative and the Minnesota Small Grains Initiative. Seed of Quest is available through the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.
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