Plant & Animal Genome IX Conference Plant & Animal Genome IX Conference
Workshop: Forage & Turfgrass
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The tissue culture and transformation program in the Forage Biotechnology Group focuses on developing reliable plant regeneration and genetic transformation systems for different forage grasses and cloning important agronomic genes. The aim of the program is to accelerate or complement our conventional breeding efforts by direct introduction of agronomically useful genes into important forage crops. Among many cool season forage grass species, tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), Russian wildrye (Psathyrostachys juncea) and tall wheatgrass (Thinopyrum ponticum) were chosen to work with, since they showed potential to be grown in the southern Great Plains. An efficient plant regeneration system has been worked out for Russian wildrye and tall fescue. Greater efforts are being made to improve the tissue culture response of tall wheatgrass, which is a very recalcitrant monocot species. Transgenic plants have been obtained for selected cultivars of tall fescue and Russian wildrye by biolistic transformation of suspension cells. Hygromycin phosphotransferase gene (hph) has been used as selectable marker. Transmission genetics of the introduced foreign genes is being studied for these outcrossing species. Genes involved in lignin biosynthesis have been cloned and transferred back to tall fescue for increased forage quality.