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magazine
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Researchers have found markers for
aluminum-resistance genes in wheat that breeders could use to improve the
resistance of regional varieties. Aluminum can hurt production for wheat
growers in the southern Great Plains. Click the image for more information
about it.
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Helping Wheat Pass the Acid Test
By Ann Perry
August 4, 2008 Many wheat farmers in the southern
Great Plains states face a significant challenge: High levels of aluminum
released in the acidic soils can stunt crop growth. So
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant
geneticist
Guihua
Bai leads a team that is improving the odds for cultivating wheat in these
acidic soils.
Bai works at the ARS
Plant
Science and Entomology Research Unit, part of the agency's
Grain
Marketing and Production Research Center in Manhattan, Kan. His research
includes finding aluminum-resistance genes in wheat that breeders could use to
improve the resistance of regional varieties to aluminum toxicity.
Bai and Kansas State University
colleagues Dadong Zhang and Shibin Cai created a wheat population by crossing
"FSW," a Chinese wheat landrace known for its resistance to aluminum,
with "ND35," a wheat line sensitive to elevated levels of aluminum in
soils. They exposed the population to high aluminum levels to assess their
resistance to aluminum toxicity.
The team assessed the effects of aluminum exposure on roots by measuring
root growth and evaluating how effectively hematoxylin stained the root tissue.
Hematoxylin is a natural dye that only stains root tissue after reacting to
aluminum that has been drawn out of the soil and into the roots.
The researchers then compared patterns of 1,028 simple-sequence-repeat (SSR)
markers between the two wheat parents and their offspring to identify
relationships between markers and aluminum resistance among the offspring. SSR
markers are short repeating segments of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that are
found in all chromosomes. Some SSRs are near the genes that confer beneficial
traits in plants and can be used to locate these genes in experimental
populations.
The scientists used the SSR map to locate two genes in FSW that together
accounted for about 58 percent of its aluminum resistance. They also identified
several SSR markers that are in close proximity to these genes. These SSRs
could potentially be used to tag aluminum resistance genes for breeding
aluminum-resistant wheat varieties.
Read
more about this research in the August 2008 issue of Agricultural
Research magazine.
ARS is a scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.