Plant & Animal Genomes XVI Conference

January 12-16, 2008
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Diversity Of Turkish Populations Of Brachypodium distachyon

John P. Vogel¹ , Metin Tuna²

¹  USDA-ARS Western Regional Research Center, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA, 94710 USA

²  Namik Kemal University, Tekirdag, Turkey

A key requirement for a model system is the free availability of a diverse collection of germplasm. Unfortunately, freely accessible germplasm for the model grass Brachypodium distachyon is limited at the present time. To develop new germplasm resources we made 72 collections of Brachypodium seed from nine locations across Turkey. Areas with different climactic conditions were sampled to maximize the diversity of the collection. The diversity of these wild collections and the previously available germplasm was assayed using 44 SSR markers. Flowering time, vernalization requirements, seed size and ploidy were also determined. A great deal of diversity was observed both between and within populations indicating that Brachypodium will be a suitable model for applications that utilize natural diversity such as EcoTILLING. More than 60 new diploid inbred lines are being developed and will be freely released to the community as they are ready.