Monday, November 5, 2007
63-13

Field Assessment of Drought-Tolerant Canola Mediated by Conditional Down-regulation of Protein Farnesylation.

Michelle Beaith1, Jifeng Ying1, Monika Kuzma1, Yang Wang1, Maryse Chalifoux1, Angela Sample1, Charlene McArthur1, Tina Uchacz1, Carlene Sarvas1, Jiangxin Wan1, Malcolm Devine1, David Dennis1, Peter McCourt2, and Yafan Huang1. (1) Performance Plants Inc., 101-108 Research Dr, Saskatoon, SK S7N 3R3, Canada, (2) University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, ON K7L 3N6, Canada

Drought is the leading cause of canola yield loss on the Canadian prairies, and increasing productivity under water deficit stress is an important goal of canola development efforts in this region. Genetic engineering offers promise for increasing canola yields under drought conditions. Field experiments were conducted in 2006 to evaluate the growth and yield of transgenic canola line grown under geographically different conditions so that we could determine the relationship between moisture received in flowering period in those locations and the corresponding eventual yields. Three events, including one promising transgenic line (mediated by conditional down-regulation of protein farnesylation and designated as YPT), the segregated null and the parent DH 12075, were tested at seven locations across three Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba). Seedling vigor, plant stand establishment, days to flowering, plant height, lodging, days to maturity and seed yield were measured. YPT produced higher seed yield than the null and parent at six and five of the seven tested locations, respectively. Pooled data showed the yield of the YPT line was significantly higher than that of the null and parent (P<0.05). In each location, there were no significant differences among YPT, null and parent for seedling vigor, plant stand establishment, days to flowering, plant height, lodging and days to maturity. Regression analyses with this multiple location field data showed a negative correlation between YPT seed yield (as % of its segregated null) and rainfall during the flowering period, with an R2 = 0.90 (p<0.01), and the correlation was not significant when comparing the yields with rainfalls in other stages of growth.  Together, these results confirm previous finding that canola is most susceptible to drought stress at flowering time, and conditional down-regulation of protein farnesylation provides effective yield protection against drought stress in this critical period of growth.

Back to Physiological Responses to Irrigation, Drought, Salinity, Cold, and Hypoxia
Back to C02 Crop Physiology and Metabolism

Back to The ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings (November 4-8, 2007)