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Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 5/9/2000 Publication Date: 5/9/2000 Citation: Rowland, L.J. 2000. Cold-responsive genes in blueberry: their relationship to dormancy and cold hardness. Meeting Abstract. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Perennial plants, like blueberry, must undergo physiological changes in order to prepare for and ultimately survive the winter. In a recent survey of blueberry research and extension scientists in the United States, lack of winter hardiness and susceptibility to spring frosts were identified as the most important genetic limitations of current cultivars. How these factors are controlled genetically is not well understood. For these reasons, a combination of molecular, genetic, and physiological approaches are being used to investigate genetic controls of chilling requirement, cold hardiness, and related factors in blueberry. Previously, three dehydrins of 65, 60, and 14 kDa were identified as the predominant proteins present in cold acclimated blueberry floral buds. Levels were shown to increase with cold acclimation and decrease with deacclimation and resumption of growth. Furthermore, gene expression studies indicated that blueberry dehydrins ar induced by cold stress in all organs examined including floral buds, leaves, stems, and roots, and by drought stress in primarily stems. Although dehydrin accumulation correlated positively with cold hardiness levels, it did not correspond precisely to the degree of drought tolerance or drought avoidance. To date, one full-length and four partial-length dehydrin cDNAs have been cloned and sequenced. In a related mapping study, efforts are underway to identify QTLs controlling chilling requirement and cold hardiness in a diploid blueberry population and to map the dehydrin genes and other cold-responsive genes to determine if any map to QTLs identified as controlling chilling requirement or cold hardiness. |
