ARS | Publication request: DETERMINATION OF REPRODUCTIVE MODE AND GENOME SIZE OF A USDA CORE COLLECTION OF KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS (POA PRATENSIS L.) BY CELL FLOW CYTOMETRY

Submitted to: ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: July 1, 2003
Publication Date: November 2, 2003
Citation: WIENERS, R.R., FEI, S., JOHNSON, R.C. DETERMINATION OF REPRODUCTIVE MODE AND GENOME SIZE OF A USDA CORE COLLECTION OF KENTUCKY BLUEGRASS (POA PRATENSIS L.) BY CELL FLOW CYTOMETRY. ASA-CSSA-SSSA ANNUAL MEETING ABSTRACTS. 2003. p. 123246

Technical Abstract: Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) is an economically important facultative apomictic turf and forage grass species. Apomixis provides the ability to clone plants through mature seed, which results in the uniform phenotype desired in turfgrass applications. Detecting plants produced by apomitic processes using traditional techniques including microdissections of ovaries, and progeny tests for maternal/aberrant plants for facultative apomictic species are too laborious for routine analysis of large numbers of individual plants. In this study, 38 accessions of a USDA core collection of Kentucky bluegrass were screened for reproductive pathways using flow cytometric analysis of mature seeds. The majority of accessions exhibited a combination of reduced, zygotic and unreduced, parthenogenic embryo production, but the presence of other pathways is noted. Somatic tissue analysis was conducted to assess the genetic diversity present within the collection, as well as to confirm reproductive pathway results. Both the mature seed and somatic tissue analysis show a large range of genetic and reproductive diversity within this core collection. Also examined in this research was the ability of flow cytometry to discern differences in DNA content of a bulked sample containing somatic tissues of a large number of plants. The ability to screen large numbers of plants together allows a quicker method to assess diversity within an accession or population.