Wouter L. Ballizany
Lincoln University,New Zealand
Title: Genetic mapping of flavonoids, biomass production and morphological attributes under water deficit in a novel white clover (Trifolium repens L.) population
Biography
Biography: Wouter L. Ballizany
Abstract
Molecular approaches in white clover breeding research have delivered parallel improvements in herbage yield and persistence, improvement of forage quality, utilisation of molecular markers in complex populations to implement selection indices, and abiotic stress tolerance toward utilisation in improved grasslands. Field and nursery-based studies have linked flavonoid metabolites to drought tolerance. Only 27 of 237 marker-trait associations (11%) were common to both water-limited and water-sufficient environments, confirming the existence of stress specific genotypic effects. One co-location was observed between quercetin glycosides and leaf size quantitative trait loci (QTL), whereas a number of biomass and flavonoid specific QTL were discovered, which can be considered as candidate genomic locations for explaining part of the variability of persistence related to leaf size and biomass in plants under stress. Several promising genetic regions were discovered in the parental ecotype “Tienshan†homoeologous groups with positive genotypic effects for important traits such as quercetin glycosides, biomass production, stolon density and leaf size, which is remarkable for such a small white clover ecotype. These results support the hypothesis that flavonoid metabolism provides valuable adaptive capacity for improving white clover responses to water deficit induced stress, and is largely independent of genetic factors controlling yield per se