Leaf formononetin content of Trifolium subterraneum increases in response to waterlogging but its proportion of total isoflavones is little changed
Gereltsetseg Enkhbat
A * , Kevin J. Foster A , Phillip G. H. Nichols A , William Erskine A , Yoshiaki Inukai B and Megan H. Ryan A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A UWA School of Agriculture and Environment and Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
B Graduate School of Bioagricultural Science at Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Japan.
Functional Plant Biology 50(6) 507-518 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP22151
Submitted: 5 July 2022 Accepted: 13 April 2023 Published: 5 May 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY)
Abstract
The isoflavone formononetin (F) impacts livestock fertility and cultivars of the pasture legume Trifolium subterraneum L. (subclover) have been selected for F levels ≤0.2% of leaf dry weight. However, the impact of waterlogging (WL) on isoflavones is little studied. We investigated the response of isoflavones, biochanin A (BA), genistein (G) and F, to WL for: (1) Yarloop (high F) and eight low F cultivars each from subspecies subterraneum, brachycalycinum and yanninicum (Experiment 1); and (2) four cultivars and 12 ecotypes of ssp. yanninicum (Experiment 2). WL impacted F: estimated means increased from 0.19% (control) to 0.31% (WL) in Experiment 1 and from 0.61% to 0.97% in Experiment 2. Isoflavones under WL were highly heritable, particularly F (H2 = 95%). The proportions of BA, G and F were little changed by WL, with strong positive correlations between free-drained and waterlogged treatments. Isoflavone contents were not related to WL tolerance, as assessed by shoot relative growth rate. In conclusion, isoflavones varied among genotypes and increased with WL, but the proportion of individual isoflavones in each genotype was stable. High F under WL was unrelated with genotype tolerance to WL. Instead, it was a consequence of inherently high F for that particular genotype.
Keywords: eco-geographic variables, formononetin, genetic resources, heritability, leaf isoflavones, pasture legumes, subterranean clover, waterlogging.
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