Teagasc, which is supporting this research, says this is an important step towards the development of hybrid ryegrass varieties in the future.
Despite extensive research over the past 70 years, these underlying genes have remained uncharacterised, preventing breeders from developing hybrid ryegrasses and thus denying farmers the benefit of hybrid vigour demonstrated in many other types of crops and livestock.
The science
Self-incompatibilty is a genetic mechanism used by plants to avoid self-fertilisation and promote outcrossing. The mechanism works by enabling plants to recognise their own pollen and reject it in favour of pollen from another plant.
In perennial ryegrass, this mechanism is controlled by at least two genetic regions named S and Z, and knowing the genes at these regions will help breeders develop hybrid breeding systems to produce better varieties for Irish farmers.
Good news for farmers
Tillage specialist with the Irish Farmers Journal Andy Doyle said that this discovery could be of considerable use to farmers in the future.
“The discovery opens the door to more targeted development of new grass varieties for the future. The findings enable parent varieties in a plant breeding programme to be outcrossed as a result of a self-incompatibility system, which can be incorporated into one of the parents to it from self-fertilising and thus leave it open for pollen from a second targeted parent variety during seed production,” he said.
“The use of this new technology is confined to plant breeding, but it may enable the development of more targeted grass characteristics, which could be of considerable use to farmers. Hybridisation is now very common in the plant world and it is frequently associated with increased vigour and other traits in the offspring.
“If these benefits can be repeated in ryegrass, it may well enable a series of new traits to be targeted in the future which are of direct relevance to grass producers,” he said.
Teagasc has supported this strategic research over the last decade, enabling two postgraduate students under the Teagasc Walsh Fellowship scheme to complete their PhDs on self-incompatibility and characterisation of the S and Z regions in perennial ryegrass.
Dr Stephen Byrne, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow, said: “It is an exciting outcome and will pave the way to unravelling the self-incompatibility cascade in grasses and in turn simplify and accelerate breeding procedures in a plant with huge importance to the Irish bio-economy.”
Read more
Understanding how perennial ryegrass grows
Teagasc, which is supporting this research, says this is an important step towards the development of hybrid ryegrass varieties in the future.
Despite extensive research over the past 70 years, these underlying genes have remained uncharacterised, preventing breeders from developing hybrid ryegrasses and thus denying farmers the benefit of hybrid vigour demonstrated in many other types of crops and livestock.
The science
Self-incompatibilty is a genetic mechanism used by plants to avoid self-fertilisation and promote outcrossing. The mechanism works by enabling plants to recognise their own pollen and reject it in favour of pollen from another plant.
In perennial ryegrass, this mechanism is controlled by at least two genetic regions named S and Z, and knowing the genes at these regions will help breeders develop hybrid breeding systems to produce better varieties for Irish farmers.
Good news for farmers
Tillage specialist with the Irish Farmers Journal Andy Doyle said that this discovery could be of considerable use to farmers in the future.
“The discovery opens the door to more targeted development of new grass varieties for the future. The findings enable parent varieties in a plant breeding programme to be outcrossed as a result of a self-incompatibility system, which can be incorporated into one of the parents to it from self-fertilising and thus leave it open for pollen from a second targeted parent variety during seed production,” he said.
“The use of this new technology is confined to plant breeding, but it may enable the development of more targeted grass characteristics, which could be of considerable use to farmers. Hybridisation is now very common in the plant world and it is frequently associated with increased vigour and other traits in the offspring.
“If these benefits can be repeated in ryegrass, it may well enable a series of new traits to be targeted in the future which are of direct relevance to grass producers,” he said.
Teagasc has supported this strategic research over the last decade, enabling two postgraduate students under the Teagasc Walsh Fellowship scheme to complete their PhDs on self-incompatibility and characterisation of the S and Z regions in perennial ryegrass.
Dr Stephen Byrne, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow, said: “It is an exciting outcome and will pave the way to unravelling the self-incompatibility cascade in grasses and in turn simplify and accelerate breeding procedures in a plant with huge importance to the Irish bio-economy.”
Read more
Understanding how perennial ryegrass grows
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