Development of Swedish winter oat with gene technology and molecular breeding

Journal article, 2006

In Sweden, oat (Avena sativa) is only grown as a spring crop. A Swedish winter oat, on the other hand, would give increased yields and would secure oat in Swedish agriculture. During three consecutive winters we performed field trials with oat aiming at identifying potential winter material. More than 300 varieties, originating from breeding programs all over the world, were tested. Plants were rated according to winter survival, vigour and general performance during the following growth season and more than 20 lines were identified that were cold hardier than present commercial oat varieties. In parallel experiments a cDNA library was constructed from cold induced English winter oat (Gerald) and ca 10000 EST sequences were generated. After data mining a UniGene set of 2800 oat genes was obtained. By detailed analysis of microarray data from cold stressed Arabidopsis and by advanced bioinformatics, gene interactions in the complex cold induced signal transduction pathway were deduced. By comparison to the oat UniGene set, several genes potentially involved in the regulation of cold hardiness in oat were identified. An Agrobacterium mediated transformation protocol was developed for one oat genotype. Key regulatory genes in cold acclimation will be introduced to oat by genetic transformation or modified by TILLING. Such genes will be used as molecular markers in intogression of winter hardiness to commercial oat.