Project Number: 6618-22000-034-08
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Sep 01, 2007
End Date: Aug 31, 2010

Objective:
The goal is to facilitate the adoption of molecular tools as an aid to the improvement of important floral crops. The first objective will be to identify the floral crops most likely to benefit from these tools in the near term. Secondly, we will broaden available information regarding repetitive sequences (SSR's) and retrotransponsons. Final objective will be to test these sequences in selected floral crops to develop protocols for fingerprinting and/or markers for simply inherited traits.

Approach:
We will obtain input from the floral industry to identify those crops that currently have significant breeding efforts in the United States and are most likely to benefit from this information in the relatively near term. We will conduct exhaustive surveys of the target crops for SSR's and retrotransposons. We will utilize the high throughput sequencing capabilities of the GRL located at NCSU for screening the genomes of target crops for SSR's. We are already using the facility for sequencing and have all techniques functioning in the lab. We have already identified African retrotransposon sequences in poinsettia, chrysanthemum, petunia and violet. We will use these techniques to identify and characterize the spectrum of retrotransposons, as well as flanking sequences in the target crops. The final phase will be to establish the suitability of these sequences as markers for desirable traits in floral crops and/or in generating cultivar fingerprints.