Functional screening of willow alleles in Arabidopsis combined with QTL mapping in willow (Salix) identifies SxMAX4 as a coppicing response gene.

ABSTRACT: Willows (Salix spp.) are important biomass crops due to their ability to grow rapidly with low fertilizer inputs and ease of cultivation in short-rotation coppice cycles. They are relatively undomesticated and highly diverse, but functional testing to identify useful allelic variation is time-consuming in trees and transformation is not yet possible in willow. Arabidopsis is heralded as a model plant from which knowledge can be transferred to advance the improvement of less tractable species. Here, knowledge and methodologies from Arabidopsis were successfully used to identify a gene influencing stem number in coppiced willows, a complex trait of key biological and industrial relevance. The strigolactone-related More AXillary growth (MAX) genes were considered candidates due to their role

SUBMITTER: Salmon J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4238783 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature