Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Common oat (Avena sativa L.) is a cereal crop grown in temperate climates worldwide. In the Nordic countries, oat production comprises a significant part of food and forage production, yet the domestic oat production in Iceland today is limited. The production is under threat as the most popular oat cultivar in Iceland is about to be withdrawn from the market. In the absence of cultivars adapted to the extreme Icelandic environment, growth in the sector is limited. In this work, the Iowa Recurrent Selection Population (IRS) was evaluated as a potential pre-breeding material for oats adapted to Icelandic conditions. A seed panel of 445 genotypes sourced from novel recurrent selection material, experimental lines and commercially available cultivars were used to collect phenotypic data under field conditions in Iceland. Recorded data on days to panicle emergence and degree of maturity at harvest was used for analysis of earliness, as incomplete maturation within the short Icelandic growing season hinders successful production. Plant height and lodging susceptibility was recorded to assess the ability of the material to withstand strong winds and rain.
Observations from a field trial conducted by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) conducted on the same seed panel were compared with the Icelandic data to assess dynamic stability, phenotypic diversity and genotype by environment interaction (GxE). Additionally, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was carried out to identify genetic markers associated with the traits of interest. The broad-sense heritability was high for two of the four studied traits. Moreover, the genotypic variation for all traits was large, indicating great potential for high genetic gain though further breeding. Putative marker-trait associations were found for six individual SNPs and three traits. The results from a principal component analysis (PCA) indicated considerably larger genetic diversity within the IRS population compared to the cultivars and experimental lines. This suggests that the IRS population could present valuable genetic resources for broadening the currently narrow Nordic oat gene pool.
Trends of increased height, delayed panicle emergence and decreased degree of maturity was observed over cycles of selection in the IRS population. Although the experimental lines and cultivars surpassed the IRS population in overall performance, certain genotypes within the IRS population exceeded the mean values and showed great promise as candidates for future pre-breeding of Icelandic oats.