Resistance in lettuce to the leaf aphids Macrosiphum euphorbiae and Uroleucon sonchi.

Summary Screening of 90 lettuce genotypes revealed great variation in resistance to the leaf aphids Macrosiphum euphorbiae and Uroleucon sonchi. Butterhead genotypes were usually, but not always, moderately to highly resistant to both aphid species. On the other hand mcjst crisphead genotypes had little or no resistance to both species. The results for the modern crisphead cultivar Marbello showed that it is possible to transfer resistance to M. euphorbiae from the butterhead to the crisphead type. Breeding programmes should benefit from the fact that in many cases resistance to M. euphorbiae and to U. sonchi, and in some cases also to other aphid species, was found in the same genotype. However, correlations between resistance scores for M. euphorbiae and U. sonchi were rather low, indicating that some components of resistance are specific to only one of the aphid species. Also within three groups of genotypes with resistance to Nasonovia ribisnigri, Myzus persicae and Pemphigus bursarius, respectively, large differences in resistance to M, euphorbiae and U. sonchi were found. The accumulation in one genotype of various resistance components to create cultivars with broad aphid resistance is a challenging and difficult task for practical plant breeding.