Unlocking allelic variation in circadian clock genes to develop environmentally robust and productive crops

The circadian clock senses light and temperature in day–night cycles to drive biological rhythms. The clock integrates endogenous signals and exogenous stimuli to coordinate diverse physiological processes. Advances in high-throughput non-invasive assays, use of forward- and inverse-genetic approaches, and powerful algorithms are allowing quantitation of variation and detection of genes associated with circadian dynamics. Circadian rhythms and phytohormone pathways in response to endogenous and exogenous cues have been well documented the model plant Arabidopsis. Novel allelic variation associated with circadian rhythms facilitates adaptation and range expansion, and may provide additional opportunity to tailor climate-resilient crops. The circadian phase and period can determine adaptation to environments, while the robustness in the circadian amplitude can enhance resilience to environmental changes. Circadian rhythms in plants are tightly controlled by multiple and interlocked transcriptional–translational feedback loops involving morning (CCA1, LHY), mid-day (PRR9, PRR7, PRR5), and evening (TOC1, ELF3, ELF4, LUX) genes that maintain the plant circadian clock ticking. Significant progress has been made to unravel the functions of circadian rhythms and clock genes that regulate traits, via interaction with phytohormones and trait-responsive genes, in diverse crops. Altered circadian rhythms and clock genes may contribute to hybrid vigor as shown in Arabidopsis, maize, and rice. Modifying circadian rhythms via transgenesis or genome-editing may provide additional opportunities to develop crops with better buffering capacity to environmental stresses. Models that involve clock gene‒phytohormone‒trait interactions can provide novel insights to orchestrate circadian rhythms and modulate clock genes to facilitate breeding of all season crops

Göte Turesson’s research legacy to Hereditas: from the ecotype concept in plants to the analysis of landraces’ diversity in crops

Hereditas began with articles on plants since its first issue in May 1920 (six out of eight) and continued with more original articles (43% of the total of this journal) on plants (of which 72% of those in plants were on crops) until today. In December 1922, the 140-page article The Genotypical Response of the Plant Species to the Habitat by evolutionary botanist Göte Turesson (Institute of Genetics, Lund University, Åkarp, Sweden) became available. This publication shows that plant phenology has a genetic basis and may ensue from local adaptation. As a result of this research involving various plant species, Turesson elaborated further in this article his term ecotype “as an ecological sub-unit to cover the product arising as a result of the genotypical response of an ecospecies to a particular habitat.” Although plant articles included in Hereditas involved from its beginning, trait inheritance, mutants, linkage analysis, cytology or cytogenetics, and more recently gene mapping and analysis of quantitative trait loci with the aid of DNA markers, among others, since the mid-1980s several publications refer to the population biology of plant landraces, which are locally grown cultivars that evolved over time by adapting to their natural and cultural environment (i.e., agriculture), and that may become isolated from other populations of the same crop. This article provides a briefing about research on plant science in the journal with emphasis on crops, summarizes the legacy to genetics of Göte Turesson, and highlights some landrace diversity research results and their potential for plant breeding

Exploring Data Augmentation Algorithm to Improve Genomic Prediction of Top-Ranking Cultivars

Genomic selection (GS) is a groundbreaking statistical machine learning method for advancing plant and animal breeding. Nonetheless, its practical implementation remains challenging due to numerous factors affecting its predictive performance. This research explores the potential of data augmentation to enhance prediction accuracy across entire datasets and specifically within the top 20% of the testing set. Our findings indicate that, overall, the data augmentation method (method A), when compared to the conventional model (method C) and assessed using Mean Arctangent Absolute Prediction Error (MAAPE) and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE), did not improve the prediction accuracy for the unobserved cultivars. However, significant improvements in prediction accuracy (evidenced by reduced prediction error) were observed when data augmentation was applied exclusively to the top 20% of the testing set. Specifically, reductions in MAAPE_20 and NRMSE_20 by 52.86% and 41.05%, respectively, were noted across various datasets. Further investigation is needed to refine data augmentation techniques for effective use in genomic prediction

Genotype by environment interaction influence on functional molecules tocopherols and sterols accumulation in sunflower oil

Tocopherol and sterol are non-dietary functional molecules in sunflower oil, which act as antioxidants, reduce cholesterol and improve immunity against diseases. The present study was designed to determine tocopherol and sterol contents in 13 high and two low oleic acid sunflower hybrids across two seasons (spring and autumn) and four locations under subtropical conditions of Pakistan with contrasting reproductive phase temperatures. The results showed that tocopherol and sterol contents varied across the seasons and locations. Autumn planting produced high tocopherol content. Moreover, locations under high temperature during reproductive phase negatively affected the sterol and tocopherol contents. High oleic acid hybrids yielded 38% higher tocopherol content than low oleic acid hybrids. High oleic acid hybrids produced higher sterol contents at all locations and seasons. Hybrids such as H4 and H5 are considered stable due to comparatively close values of tocopherol and sterol contents across the four locations when compared with standard checks and other hybrids during spring season as indicated from various stability parameters. Hybrids H8, H4 and H5 also manifested higher magnitude of heterosis for tocopherol and sterol contents that may be due to overdominance gene action. Breeding lines such as B.116.P, B.112.P and RH.365 were positive combiners for the investigated traits, thus likely carrying positive alleles for both tocopherol and sterol traits

Advances in transgenic vegetable and fruit breeding

Vegetables and fruits are grown worldwide and play an important role in human diets because they provide vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and phytochemicals. Vegetables and fruits are also associated with improvement of gastrointestinal health, good vision, and reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, chronic diseases such as diabetes, and some forms of cancer. Vegetable and fruit production suffers from many biotic stresses caused by pathogens, pests, and weeds and requires high amounts of plant protection products per hectare. United States vegetables farmers are benefiting from growing transgenic squash cultivars resistant to Zucchini yellow mosaic virus , Watermelon mosaic virus , and Cucumber mosaic virus , which were deregulated and commercialized since 1996. Bt- sweet corn has also proven effective for control of some lepidopteran species and continues to be accepted in the fresh market in the USA, and Bt- fresh-market sweet corn hybrids are released almost every year. Likewise, transgenic Bt- eggplant bred to reduce pesticide use is now grown by farmers in Bangladesh. Transgenic papaya cultivars carrying the coat-protein gene provide effective protection against Papaya ring spot virus elsewhere. The transgenic “Honey Sweet” plum cultivar provides an interesting germplasm source for Plum pox virus control. Enhanced host plant resistance to Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum , which causes the devastating banana Xanthomonas wilt in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, was achieved by plant genetic engineering. There are other vegetable and fruit crops in the pipeline that have been genetically modified to enhance their host plant resistance to insects and plant pathogens, to show herbicide tolerance, and to improve features such as slow ripening that extends the shelf-life of the produce. Consumers could benefit further from eating more nutritious transgenic vegetables and fruits. Transgenic plant breeding therefore provides genetically enhanced seed embedded technology that contributes to integrated pest management in horticulture by reducing pesticide sprays as well as improving food safety by minimizing pesticide residues. Furthermore, herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops can help reducing plough in fields, thereby saving fuel because of less tractor use, which also protects the structure of the soil by reducing its erosion. Transgenic vegetable and fruit crops could make important contributions to sustainable vegetable production and for more nutritious and healthy food. Countries vary, however, in their market standards of acceptance of transgenic crops. Biotechnology products will be successful if clear advantages and safety are demonstrated to both growers and consumers

The Combination of Low-Cost, Red–Green–Blue (RGB) Image Analysis and Machine Learning to Screen for Barley Plant Resistance to Net Blotch

Challenges of climate change and growth population are exacerbated by noticeable environmental changes, which can increase the range of plant diseases, for instance, net blotch (NB), a foliar disease which significantly decreases barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) grain yield and quality. A resistant germplasm is usually identified through visual observation and the scoring of disease symptoms; however, this is subjective and time-consuming. Thus, automated, non-destructive, and low-cost disease-scoring approaches are highly relevant to barley breeding. This study presents a novel screening method for evaluating NB severity in barley. The proposed method uses an automated RGB imaging system, together with machine learning, to evaluate different symptoms and the severity of NB. The study was performed on three barley cultivars with distinct levels of resistance to NB (resistant, moderately resistant, and susceptible). The tested approach showed mean precision of 99% for various categories of NB severity (chlorotic, necrotic, and fungal lesions, along with leaf tip necrosis). The results demonstrate that the proposed method could be effective in assessing NB from barley leaves and specifying the level of NB severity; this type of information could be pivotal to precise selection for NB resistance in barley breeding

Plant breeding for organic agriculture: something new?

The role of both organic (OF) and conventional (CF) farming remains open to debate particularly when related to food security and climate change. Targeting plant breeding for OF can contribute to reduce its yield gaps vis-à-vis CF. Currently, the cultivars produced for CF are also used in OF, however, it is unreasonable that all lines bred for CF will always perform well in OF. Nonetheless, plant breeding goals for OF and CF converge at aiming for high productivity, host plant resistance or tolerance to biotic and abiotic factors, and high resource-use efficiency. Likewise end-use quality and local adaptation may be more important for OF as the resource recycling and quality of the inputs that are used vary from region to region, even though OF practices are highly regulated. This article provides an overview on organic plant breeding (OPB) with a perspective from conventional plant breeding, highlights the main traits, their source of variation, and what methods and tools are available for their breeding. It concludes listing some organic crop breeding achievements and providing an outlook on what needs to be done for OPB

Genetic resources: from Mendel’s peas to underutilized legumes pecies

Plant domestication is evolution in a human-made environment. A diversity “bottleneck” changed the sample of genes passing from one generation to another. Today’s crops depend on humans for habitat and propagation because some of desired traits are often maladaptive in nature. Legume genetic resources (wild species, landraces, cultivars, breeding lines, segregating populations, genetic stocks and mutants) are most often used for studying genetic diversity, agro-morphological and nutritional quality traits, and host plant resistance to pathogens and insect pests. They also offer means for understanding plant domestication. Their diversity also shows a great potential for improving crops. Advances in omics are providing new knowledge for using this germplasm diversity in legume genetic enhancement

Svalöf: a High Yielding Potato with Resistance to Late Blight in Nordic Latitudes

Svalöf is a yellow-skinned, light yellow-feshed, high-yielding table potato cultivar for the high latitude of Scandinavia, showing partial resistance to Phytophthora infestans (causing late blight) and same specifc gravity as the mealy cultivar King Edward, which is preferred in the fresh market by consumers in Sweden. It was selected as breeding clone SLU 1314015 in the frst clonal generation (T1) at the late-blight prone site of Mosslunda (Skåne, southern Sweden) in October 2015. The cross for obtaining it was made by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in 2013 involving the breeding clone D09 1:2 1701 as female parent and the Dutch cultivar Carolus as male parent. Svalöf show very large, round-oval tubers with shallow eyes and smooth skin. Its tuber yield averaged above 6%, 23%, 25% and 59% of Dutch cultivars Connect, Fontane, Carolus and Bintje, respectively, across multi-site trials in Sweden. Its unstable reducing sugar in the tuber fesh, as determined by multisite testing, suggests that it will not be suitable for the crisp or chip processing. SLU’s Svensk potatisförädling is seeking registration to be included in the Svenska Sortlistan, which lists cultivars available and is a pre-condition for certifcation of planting materials in the European Union. The release of Svalöf as new potato cultivar will be the frst entirely bred for this crop in Sweden since the mid-1990s