Feature Story
Developing Tools for Modern Breeding in Genetically Complex Crops David R. Huff, Professor of Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics, Penn State Matthew Sheltra, Ph.D. Graduate Student in Plant Biology, Penn State Christopher Benson, Ph.D. Graduate Student in Plant Biology, Penn State
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urfgrass management is a lot like plant breeding in that, to be successful in either requires a mixture of both art and science. The art portion comes from the tending of the plants and providing a watchful eye for their care and growth; while the science portion empowers us with an ability to separate fact from folklore and provides us with a pathway towards progressive advancement rather than aimless wandering and stagnation. In order to advance the science of plant breeding in genetically complex crops, the Penn State turfgrass breeding program has recently been awarded a grant from the USDA-NIFA Specialty Crops Research Initiative to collaborate with an international group of plant breeders, bioinformaticists, and computer systems analysists to develop and test new computational tools. This work will utilize our ability to sequence vast amounts of DNA and apply the resulting information towards crop improvement through the breeding process, as well as providing the opportunity to train other breeders in the use of these new tools. The fundamental science of plant breeding is genetics, which is a field of science that began in the early 1900’s after the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s earlier pioneering work. At the heart of genetics lies the DNA sequence which encodes all of the instructions for life on earth, including humans, turfgrass, and microscopic disease-causing organisms. The technological developments in sequencing DNA have been astounding, such
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that the price of sequencing a human genome has dropped from $2.7 billion to just $300 in the last twenty years. However, as the human genome (note: the “genome” of an organism is the name we use for ALL of an organism’s DNA within a single cell) contains 6.4 billion letters, that is a lot of DNA information to be able to even store on a computer let alone to mathematically process and statistically analyze, which requires substantial amounts of computer programming, power and memory. Compared to humans, plants can be even more genetically complex because plants may possess multiple copies of each gene, a genetic feature we call “polyploidy”. As such, polyploid crop plants are more difficult to genetically analyze and breed than non-polyploid crop plants. Our USDA grant is focused on developing the necessary computational tools to utilize vast amounts of DNA sequence information and to validate the use of these tools in several such polyploid crops including potatoes, blackberries, kiwi fruit, sweet potatoes, roses and turfgrass. In the past, USDA funded research in turfgrass and other ornamental crops was non-existent because the uses of turfgrass did not include food, fiber, or feed. However, through the diligent efforts of the turfgrass industry including the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP), United States Golf Association (USGA), Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), Professional Lawn Care Association of America (PLCAA), Turfgrass Producers International (TPI),
