WSU researchers expect to confirm possible wheat tillering gene

WSU researchers expect to confirm possible wheat tillering gene

 

Farm and Ranch January 18, 2010 Scientists at Washington State University may have found a single gene that controls tillering in wheat. Tillering is one of the most important traits in cereal crops because tiller number per plant determines the number of spikes per plant, a key component of grain yield.

Kulvinder Gill, who holds the Vogel Chair for Wheat Breeding and Genetics at WSU, is encouraged by what his research team has found but says confirmatory tests must be done before the scientists can say for certain they have found one gene that controls tillering. Gill says researchers started by testing to see if the gene function of tillering was same in wheat as in corn and rice.

Gill: “We were surprised that it was. So what we did was we took that gene from rice and we silenced its expression. That is when the gene is not functional.  We ask the question does the plant still set tillers? As I showed the plant didn‘t make any tillers. So that is very encouraging that this is perhaps the gene that makes plants tiller.”

And if the wheat tillering gene is confirmed:

Gill: “Then we be able to control in the future how many tillers we want and then perhaps go towards designing a wheat.”

Gill says confirmation may come this year but field application might be a longer term project, and although that could be done by none genetically modified methods, he says it would cost four times more than going the GMO route.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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