A quantitative genetics approach to nitrogen use efficiency in sugarcane
Alex Whan A B E , Nicole Robinson A B , Prakash Lakshmanan B C , Susanne Schmidt A B and Karen Aitken B DA School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia.
B Co-operative Research Centre for Sugar Industry Innovation through Biotechnology, The University of Queensland, Level 5, John Hines Building, St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia.
C BSES Ltd, 50 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Qld 4068, Australia.
D CSIRO Plant Industry, Queensland Bioscience Precinct, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia, Qld 4067, Australia.
E Corresponding author. Email: alexwhan@gmail.com
Functional Plant Biology 37(5) 448-454 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP09260
Submitted: 30 October 2009 Accepted: 13 February 2010 Published: 30 April 2010
Abstract
The economic and environmental consequences of inefficient use of nitrogen (N) fertiliser in agricultural crops is of concern worldwide, so new crop varieties with improved nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) are sought. Here, we report the first study of mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) for nitrogen physiology traits in sugarcane. QTL analysis was undertaken for each parent of a segregating bi-parental sugarcane mapping population. We grew 168 progeny under limiting (0.2 mM NH4NO3) and non-limiting (5.0 mM NH4NO3) N supplies in two glasshouse experiments. Significant marker-trait associations (MTA) were detected in each treatment for shoot dry weight, root dry weight, total shoot N, shoot internal NUE (iNUE; measured as units shoot dry weight per unit N), leaf protein content and glutamine synthetase (GS) activity. MTA for GS activity did not co-locate with other traits except leaf protein content, indicating that variation in GS activity is not linked to plant size or iNUE during early growth. Under high N, there were no significant MTA for iNUE among markers from the male parent, Q165, an Australian commercial cultivar, but six MTA were found for markers inherited from the female parent, IJ76–514, a Saccharum officinarum ancestral variety. The results indicate that variation for iNUE under high N may be lower in commercial varieties than unimproved genotypes. Further, four MTA were consistent with previous field-based research on sugar and biomass production. Our study provides initial evidence that QTL may be incorporated in sugarcane breeding programs targeting improved NUE.
Additional keywords: glutamine synthetase, NUE, QTL.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Co-operative Research Centre for Sugar Industry Innovation through Biotechnology (CRCSIIB). Alex Whan received a CRCSIIB PhD scholarship and travel stipends from Sugar Research and Development Corporation and The University of Queensland. We thank Allen Good for suggestions on the manuscript.
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