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Seasonal and genetic variations in water-soluble carbohydrates and other quality traits in ecotypes and cultivars of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2013

Sarah McGrath ,
Trevor R. Hodkinson ,
Andreas Frohlich ,
Jim Grant  and
Susanne Barth
Sarah McGrath
Affiliation:
Teagasc Crops Environment and Land Use Programme, Oak Park Research Centre, Carlow, Ireland Botany Department, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
Trevor R. Hodkinson
Affiliation:
Botany Department, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
Andreas Frohlich
Affiliation:
Teagasc Crops Environment and Land Use Programme, Oak Park Research Centre, Carlow, Ireland
Jim Grant
Affiliation:
Teagasc Research Operations Group, Statistics and Applied Physics Department, Ashtown, Dublin 15, Ireland
Susanne Barth*
Affiliation:
Teagasc Crops Environment and Land Use Programme, Oak Park Research Centre, Carlow, Ireland
*
* Corresponding author. E-mail: susanne.barth@teagasc.ie
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Abstract

Phenotyping of genetic resources remains the bottleneck in the characterization of genetic resources, since the advent of modern next-generation sequencing technologies has made genotyping much more cost- and time-effective. This article reports on the phenotyping of agriculturally important traits in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne). In the present study, water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC), crude protein and dry matter contents were recorded for 1320 individuals, pooled into 132 samples from 33 perennial ryegrass ecotypes and cultivars at five different harvest time points across the 2004 growing season. While, in general, the cultivars had higher WSC contents than the ecotypes, individual ecotypes did show potential to be used in breeding programmes, as they had higher values than all other accessions at particular cutting time points. In correlation analyses, positive relationships were observed between dry matter and glucose contents both early and late in the growing season. Principal components analysis allowed the split either between cultivars and ecotypes or between tetraploid cultivars and the rest of the accessions at four of the five cutting time points. In the analysis of variance, cutting time was the most significant factor influencing the variation in traits.

Keywords

carbohydratesecotypesgenetic resourcesperennial ryegrassprotein contentseasonal variation
Type
Research Article
Information
Plant Genetic Resources , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , August 2014 , pp. 236 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © NIAB 2013 

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