Plant vigour at establishment and following defoliation are both associated with responses to drought in perennial ryegrass ( Lolium perenne L.)
Open Access
- 6 August 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Journal of Experimental Botany
- Vol. 65 (20), 5823-5834
- https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/eru318
Abstract
Periodic drought events present a significant and, with climate change, increasing constraint on temperate forage plants’ production. Consequently, improving plants’ adaptive response to abiotic stress is a key goal to ensure agricultural productivity in these regions. In this study we developed a new methodology, using both area-based comparison and soil water content measurements of individual non-irrigated and irrigated clones, to assess performance of perennial ryegrass ( Lolium perenne L.) genotypes subjected to moisture stress in a simulated competitive environment. We applied this method to the evaluation of a full-sibling population from a pair cross between genotypes from a New Zealand cultivar and a Moroccan ecotype. Our hypothesis was that: (i) both leaf lamina regrowth after defoliation (LR) and plant vigour affect plant performance during drought and rehydration; and (ii) quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with plant performance under moisture stress could be identified. Differences amongst genotypes in dry matter (DM) production, early vigour at establishment, leaf elongation rate and LR were measured. LR explained most of the variation in DM production during exposure to moisture deficit and rehydration followed by plant vigour, indicated by initial DM production in both treatments and subsequent measures of DM production of irrigated clones. We identified two main QTL regions associated with DM production and LR, both during drought exposure and rehydration. Further research focused on these regions should improve our understanding of the genetic control of drought response in this forage crop and potentially other grass species with significant synteny, and support improvement in performance through molecular breeding approaches.Keywords
This publication has 71 references indexed in Scilit:
- Evaluation of reduced-tillering (tin) wheat lines in managed, terminal water deficit environmentsJournal of Experimental Botany, 2013
- Association of candidate genes with drought tolerance traits in diverse perennial ryegrass accessionsJournal of Experimental Botany, 2013
- AB-QTL analysis reveals new alleles associated to proline accumulation and leaf wilting under drought stress conditions in barley (Hordeum vulgareL.)BMC Genomic Data, 2012
- Comparative Genomics in Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium perenneL.): Identification and Characterisation of an Orthologue for the Rice Plant Architecture-Controlling GeneOsABCG5International Journal of Plant Genomics, 2011
- Chromosomal rearrangements differentiating the ryegrass genome from the Triticeae, oat, and rice genomes using common heterologous RFLP probesTheoretical and Applied Genetics, 2005
- Functionally associated molecular genetic marker map construction in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 2004
- An SSR-based genetic linkage map for perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 2002
- BLAT—The BLAST-Like Alignment ToolGenome Research, 2002
- Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programsNucleic Acids Research, 1997
- THE ESTIMATION OF MAP DISTANCES FROM RECOMBINATION VALUESAnnals of Eugenics, 1943