Author
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Kindiger, Bryan |
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Submitted to: American Society of Plant Biologists Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 2/20/2015 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Tall fescue is the predominant cool-season perennial grass forage utilized in the USA and much of the world. Advances in improving traditional breeding techniques to generate superior cultivars or germplasm of tall fescue has not been forthcoming. Recent research has identified a line of ryegrass that when cross-pollinated with tall fescue, results in the formation of F1 hybrids that undergo a loss in either the ryegrass or tall fescue chromosomes. This behavior takes place infrequently in the flowering portion of the hybrid plant resulting in the F1 producing offspring that are fully recovered ryegrass or tall fescue. This behavior is the result of a genome loss behavior, novel to the ryegrass line utilized in the hybridizations. Though the frequency of genome loss is low, the ease at which the ryegrass or tall fescue offspring are recovered from the F1 make this a very efficient approach for breeding and selecting tall fescue germplasm with superior genetics. The outcome of this approach will be valuable to researchers involved in developing superior tall fescue cultivars or involved in tall fescue molecular mapping studies. Technical Abstract: There is a need for modern breeding approaches in the Lolium/Festuca genus to facilitate the rapid development of improved germplasm or cultivars and take advantage of modern molecular based mapping methods. Traditional recurrent or mass-selection methods for population or synthetic development are labor- intensive and time- consuming. The recent development of dihaploid (DH) inducer lines of annual ryegrass (Lolium perenne L. subsp. multiflorum (Lam.) Husnot (syn. Lolium multiflorum Lam.) that exhibit genome loss when hybridized with tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb. syn. Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh.) can provide an alternative breeding approach and provide an array of homozygous materials for molecular marker studies. This behavior results in the occasional generation of both ryegrass and tall fescue DH lines through parthenogenic embryo formation within the F1 inflorescence. This approach will be valuable to researchers involved in developing superior tall fescue cultivars or involved in tall fescue molecular mapping studies. |
