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Imprint
Influence of breeding process on insect – phytopathogen – plant interaction in oilseed rape cultivars (BreedIntAct)
Project
Project code: JKI-ÖPV-08-1437
Contract period: 01.11.2020
- 31.10.2021
Purpose of research: Experimental development
Due to the increasing global demand for renewable resources for food supply and energy production, canola cultivation has become much more important in the last 20 years, which is also reflected in the strong increase in the amount of land available for cultivation. Of the 2.6 million hectares of renewable resources cultivated in 2017, rapeseed will account for the largest share (0.75 million hectares) and is the third most commonly cultivated crop in the EU. With the expansion of the cultivated area, pests in rapeseed have also gained a goodng position and will continue to gain influence, also as result of climate change. In order to limit the use of chemical pesticides to the necessary extent, resistance research and resistance breeding are necessary as part of integrated crop protection.
Strong and constant selection for some major traits (e.g. seed and oil yield) and extensive inter-crossing of germplasm across oilseed rape breeding programs worldwide in the last 50 years reduced tremendously the genetic diversity in modern cultivars. This created strong genetic bottlenecks resulting in random drift for some genome regions. The intentions of this project is particularly the identification of co-localising haplotype blocks controlling major selection targets of breeding, e.g. yield-related traits, with haplotype blocks involved in insect pest and disease resistance.
The identification and comparative analysis of genomic signatures of selection across the oilseed rape genome post-domestication improvement time-line will also enable us to address fundamental evolutionary questions in crop improvement processes including the role of polyploidy, structural variation random drift and germplasm introgression in the history of a very recent crop undergoing strong selection.
Most plant species face a multitude of insect pests and disease agents. In Brassica napus, 13 pest insects and 7 disease agents attack the plant during the whole season. While several studies have investigated the plant defence mechanism of oilseed rape against one pest insect or one disease, multi-infestation by several pest insects or several disease agents are rare, even when considering cruciferous plant species in general. To unravel connections between plant defence, genetic diversity and degree of domestication in oilseed rape, a consortium of national experts in entomology, plant pathology, plant physiology, plant genetics and bioinformatics was composed that will investigate the plants´ susceptibility for important pest insects, pathogenic and non-pathogenic fungi as well as their interaction along a domestication gradient. We will quantify genetic diversity and its base for plant defence by genome sequencing of the whole plant material, followed by a complex data analysis using genetic, metabolome and insect and pathogen performance data.
Section overview
Subjects
- Crop Protection
- Genetic Resources
Framework programme
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Institute for Ecological Chemistry, Plant Analysis and Stored Products Protection (JKI-ÖPV)
