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Agronomy
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Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage...
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Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Grassland and Pasture Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 May 2021) | Viewed by 18695

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Blair L Waldron

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
USDA-ARS, Forage and Range Research, Logan, UT, USA
Interests: applied plant breeding; quantitative genetics; forage plants; forage kochia; tall fescue; grass–legume mixtures; fall and winter grazing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plant breeders utilize phenotypic and genotypic variation to develop new cultivars with desirable traits. Applied forage and turf breeding come with their unique challenges and obstacles, including a wide array of species and complex traits. This Special Issue will focus on the genetics and breeding procedures used to develop improved forage and turf. The Special Issue will include both review papers and original research papers, and papers may focus on methodology or results, including reports on heritability and gain from selection using direct or indirect selection. The articles can be on either forage or turf species, including temperate or tropical grasses and legumes, and address traits specific to forage and turf, including establishment and persistence, forage mass and nutritive value, aesthetic appearance, and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance.

Dr. Blair L Waldron
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forage
  • turf
  • breeding
  • recurrent selection
  • forage mass
  • turf quality
  • forage nutritive value
  • biotic stress
  • abiotic stress

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1462 KiB  
Article
Breeding for Resilience to Water Deficit and Its Predicted Effect on Forage Mass in Tall Fescue
by Blair L. Waldron, Kevin B. Jensen, Michael D. Peel and Valentin D. Picasso
Agronomy 2021, 11(11), 2094; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11112094 - 20 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2168
Abstract
Resilience is increasingly part of the discussion on climate change, yet there is a lack of breeding for resilience per se. This experiment examined the genetic parameters of a novel, direct measure of resilience to water deficit in tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum [...] Read more.
Resilience is increasingly part of the discussion on climate change, yet there is a lack of breeding for resilience per se. This experiment examined the genetic parameters of a novel, direct measure of resilience to water deficit in tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh.). Heritability, genetic correlations, and predicted gain from selection were estimated for average productivity, resilience, and stability based on forage mass of a tall fescue half-sib population grown under a line-source irrigation system with five different water levels (WL). Resilience was both measurable and moderately heritable (h2 = 0.43), with gains of 2.7 to 3.1% per cycle of selection predicted. Furthermore, resilience was not correlated with average response over environments and negatively correlated with stability, indicating that it was not a measure of responsiveness to more favorable environments. Genetic correlations among WL ranged from 0.87 to 0.56, however in contrast, resilience was either not or slightly negatively genetically correlated with WL except for moderate correlations with the ‘crisis’ WL. Thus, breeding for improved resilience was predicted to have little effect on forage mass at any given individual water deficit environment. Overall, results indicated that this novel metric could facilitate breeding for improved resilience per se to water deficit environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants)
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7 pages, 230 KiB  
Article
Agronomic Evaluation of the Results of Selection within Early Maturing Dactylis glomerata Germplasm
by Joseph G. Robins, B. Shaun Bushman and Kevin B. Jensen
Agronomy 2021, 11(8), 1505; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11081505 - 29 Jul 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1453
Abstract
Selection from novel orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) germplasm sources resulted in the development of an early maturing orchardgrass population. Fifty-eight families comprise this population and were evaluated under frequent and infrequent harvest intervals at Lewiston and Millville, UT, field locations during 2013 [...] Read more.
Selection from novel orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) germplasm sources resulted in the development of an early maturing orchardgrass population. Fifty-eight families comprise this population and were evaluated under frequent and infrequent harvest intervals at Lewiston and Millville, UT, field locations during 2013 and 2014. The objective of this study was to characterize the performance of the individual families when compared with the check cultivars ‘Icon’, ‘Paiute’, and ‘Potomac’. Across the locations and harvest intervals, individual families produced greater herbage dry mass and nutritive value than the check cultivars. Only for maturity (cv. Paiute) did one of the included commercial checks possess a trait value among the statistically greatest for all families. Twenty-two half-sib families were among the families with the statistically earliest maturity, and between three and eight families were among the families with the statistically greatest trait values for herbage dry mass, crude protein, in vitro true digestibility, neutral detergent fiber, and water soluble carbohydrate concentration. Overall, based on the performance of its component families, this early maturing orchardgrass population exhibited potential for developing improved cultivars for both frequent and infrequent harvest management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants)
8 pages, 232 KiB  
Article
Agronomic Evaluation of the Results of Selection within Late-Maturing Dactylis glomerata Populations
by Joseph G. Robins, B. Shaun Bushman and Kevin B. Jensen
Agronomy 2021, 11(7), 1362; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11071362 - 3 Jul 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1702
Abstract
Selection from novel orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) germplasm sources resulted in the development of a late-maturing orchardgrass population. This population comprises 58 families that were evaluated with 5 commercial cultivars under frequent and infrequent harvest intervals at two Cache County, UT, USA [...] Read more.
Selection from novel orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) germplasm sources resulted in the development of a late-maturing orchardgrass population. This population comprises 58 families that were evaluated with 5 commercial cultivars under frequent and infrequent harvest intervals at two Cache County, UT, USA field locations during 2013 and 2014. The objective of this study was to characterize the performance of individual families when compared to check cultivars Intensive and Latar. Across locations and harvest intervals, individual families produced greater herbage dry mass and nutritive value than the check cultivars did, i.e., up to 12% greater herbage dry mass than that of the highest check, Intensive, and 1% (neutral-detergent-fiber digestibility) to 14% (water soluble carbohydrates) greater forage quality than that of the corresponding highest check cultivar. However, there were substantial genotype-by-environment interactions between families and locations, but not harvest intervals. Because of this, results were analyzed across harvest intervals but within locations. Within each location, there were families that possessed similar or greater maturity, herbage dry mass, in vitro true digestibility, and neutral-detergent-fiber digestibility at both locations. Overall, on the basis of the performance of its component families, this late-maturing orchardgrass population exhibited potential for developing improved cultivars. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants)
17 pages, 5871 KiB  
Article
Ploidy Level and Genetic Parameters for Phenotypic Traits in Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) Germplasm
by Adina Y. Grossman, Mario Henrique Murad Leite Andrade, Ana Luisa Arantes Chaves, Marco Túlio Mendes Ferreira, Vânia Helena Techio, Yolanda Lopez, Kevin Begcy, Kevin E. Kenworthy and Esteban F. Rios
Agronomy 2021, 11(5), 912; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11050912 - 6 May 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3917
Abstract
Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) is a forage and turf crop commonly used worldwide. The USDA bermudagrass germplasm set is composed of plant introductions (PI’s) collected around the world and contains different Cynodon species, primarily C. dactylon. The collection was screened in a [...] Read more.
Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) is a forage and turf crop commonly used worldwide. The USDA bermudagrass germplasm set is composed of plant introductions (PI’s) collected around the world and contains different Cynodon species, primarily C. dactylon. The collection was screened in a replicated trial in Florida for forage yield, leaf width, nutritive value (NV), and Bermudagrass Stem Maggot (Atherigona reversura) (BSM), which is an invasive pest to the southeastern United States that damages bermudagrass fields. The goal of this research was to determine ploidy level and genome size in this USDA collection, and evaluate the influence of ploidy level in the estimation of genetic parameters for BSM, leaf width, dry matter yield, and NV traits. For chromosome counts using classical cytogenetics techniques, root tips and meristems were collected from a set of PI’s with known ploidy. The PI’s and cultivars with known chromosome counts were used as internal standards to run flow cytometry and estimate genome size of the PI’s with unknown ploidy. Ploidy level was determined for all accessions and were used to estimate genetic parameters of phenotypic traits. By providing information on ploidy levels and genetic parameters, this research will support breeding efforts and future selections for forage bermudagrass. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants)
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15 pages, 576 KiB  
Article
Changes in Root Architecture and Aboveground Traits of Red Clover Cultivars Driven by Breeding to Improve Persistence
by Luis Inostroza, Fernando Ortega-Klose, Catalina Vásquez and Rosemarie Wilckens
Agronomy 2020, 10(12), 1896; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10121896 - 1 Dec 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2543
Abstract
Red clover persistence has been one of the major targets for the most breeding programs worldwide. A phenotypic characterization at above- and belowground level was performed to a set of highly persistent red clover populations. The objective was to identify phenotypic changes occurring [...] Read more.
Red clover persistence has been one of the major targets for the most breeding programs worldwide. A phenotypic characterization at above- and belowground level was performed to a set of highly persistent red clover populations. The objective was to identify phenotypic changes occurring after empirical selection for plant survival, which is the consensus criteria of persistence. Eleven red clover populations were established on mesocosms of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tubes of 11 cm in diameter and 100 cm depth, containing as substrate a mixture (v/v) of sand, vermiculite, soil and perlite. The trial was organized in a randomized complete block design with four replicates, each replicate consisting of five mesocosms per population and one plant per mesocosm. In total, 220 mesocosms were handled. At aboveground level, growth parameters, specific leaf area (SLA) and shoot dry matter (ShootDM) were measured. At belowground level, root morphology (volume, diameter and length) and topology (altitude, external path length [EPL] and dichotomous branching index [DBI]) were measured through image analyses. Analyses of variance were performed implementing a phenotypic linear mixed model using the Restricted Maximum Likelihood method. Additionally, variance components were estimated and broad-sense heritability was calculated for each phenotypic trait. Highly persistent cultivars exhibited 30% higher ShootDM and 10% lower leaf size and SLA than the oldest low-persistent cultivar Quiñequeli. At root level, they showed 20, 50 and 50% higher crown diameter, root length density and root volume than Quiñequeli, respectively, but 20% lower DBI. Root traits exhibited medium-low values of genetic control; broad sense heritability ranged between 0.20 and 0.48. In conclusion, highly persistent red clover cultivars and experimental lines bred in Chile modified their phenotypic expression of individual plants at shoot and root levels relative to the oldest low persistent cultivar Quiñequeli. Associations among above- and belowground traits offer opportunities for designing more efficient selection strategies. For instance, the strong relationship between SLA and root traits offers tremendous potential for indirect phenotypic selection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants)
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19 pages, 5120 KiB  
Article
High-Throughput Ground Cover Classification of Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium Perenne L.) for the Estimation of Persistence in Pasture Breeding
by Chinthaka Jayasinghe, Pieter Badenhorst, Joe Jacobs, German Spangenberg and Kevin Smith
Agronomy 2020, 10(8), 1206; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10081206 - 17 Aug 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3663
Abstract
Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) is one of the most important forage grass species in temperate regions of Australia and New Zealand. However, it can have poor persistence due to a low tolerance to both abiotic and biotic stresses. A major challenge [...] Read more.
Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) is one of the most important forage grass species in temperate regions of Australia and New Zealand. However, it can have poor persistence due to a low tolerance to both abiotic and biotic stresses. A major challenge in measuring persistence in pasture breeding is that the assessment of pasture survival depends on ranking populations based on manual ground cover estimation. Ground cover measurements may include senescent and living tissues and can be measured as percentages or fractional units. The amount of senescent pasture present in a sward may indicate changes in plant growth, development, and resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses. The existing tools to estimate perennial ryegrass ground cover are not sensitive enough to discriminate senescent ryegrass from soil. This study aimed to develop a more precise sensor-based phenomic method to discriminate senescent pasture from soil. Ground-based RGB images, airborne multispectral images, ground-based hyperspectral data, and ground truth samples were taken from 54 perennial ryegrass plots three years after sowing. Software packages and machine learning scripts were used to develop a pipeline for high-throughput data extraction from sensor-based platforms. Estimates from the high-throughput pipeline were positively correlated with the ground truth data (p < 0.05). Based on the findings of this study, we conclude that the RGB-based high-throughput approach offers a precision tool to assess perennial ryegrass persistence in pasture breeding programs. Improvements in the spatial resolution of hyperspectral and multispectral techniques would then be used for persistence estimation in mixed swards and other monocultures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants)
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11 pages, 803 KiB  
Article
Application and Analysis of a Composite Sampling Strategy to Cost-Effectively Compare Nutritive Characteristics of Perennial Ryegrass Cultivars in Field Trials
by Clare Leddin, Khageswor Giri and Kevin Smith
Agronomy 2020, 10(8), 1152; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10081152 - 7 Aug 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2319
Abstract
Pasture nutritive value is economically important in south-eastern Australian dairy production systems, yet measurement of nutritive characteristics in pasture cultivar evaluation trials is not routinely undertaken, primarily due to cost. An approach aiming to reduce the total laboratory analysis costs in multi-harvest field [...] Read more.
Pasture nutritive value is economically important in south-eastern Australian dairy production systems, yet measurement of nutritive characteristics in pasture cultivar evaluation trials is not routinely undertaken, primarily due to cost. An approach aiming to reduce the total laboratory analysis costs in multi-harvest field trials by testing some entries as composite samples is provided. A field trial evaluating 31 trial entries sown in 4 replicates was used. On nine harvest occasions, samples were collected from each plot, dried, ground and analysed using near infrared spectroscopy for key nutritive characteristics (metabolisable energy (ME), crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF)). Additionally, composite samples of 17 of the 31 entries from each harvest were created by combining sub-samples of material from each of four replicate plots into a single sample that was also analysed. A linear mixed model (LMM) analysis accounting for spatial and temporal variation as well as spatial and temporal correlations was conducted, comparing the full data model where all plots at all harvests were tested individually to a data model where some entries were evaluated as individual plots and others as composites. The precision and accuracy of the estimates for the two models were similar and best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) means of the composite sampling strategy model were comparable to the full data model. It was concluded that if composite sampling is used in conjunction with testing samples from individual plots on a selection of cultivars, statistically valid inferences are possible and the total cost of determining the nutritive characteristics of perennial ryegrass cultivars in field trials can be reduced. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Plant Breeding and Quantitative Genetics Research to Improve Forage and Turf Plants)
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