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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fargo, North Dakota » Edward T. Schafer Agricultural Research Center » Sunflower and Plant Biology Research » Research » Research Project #442726

Research Project: Understanding Freezing Tolerance and Other Agronomically Important Traits in Canola

Location: Sunflower and Plant Biology Research

Project Number: 3060-21220-033-021-N
Project Type: Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Aug 1, 2022
End Date: Jul 31, 2027

Objective:
The objective of this work is to identify genes, signaling pathways and processes associated with various agriculturally important traits that promote the growth, development, and yield of canola. We expect to use this information to identify targets for manipulating the selected traits in winter canola. This work should help produce higher yield and greater growth capacity of winter canola.

Approach:
Primarily, we will be utilizing greenhouse , field, and controlled environmental chambers to manipulate the growth and developmental conditions perceived by winter canola. The information gained from above mentioned experiments will be used to identify and characterize the genetics and molecular underpinnings of the processes controlling agronomically important traits in this valuable species. RNA will be extracted from the treated plants collected after various treatments, and these will be subjected to RNAseq analysis. Shared resources will be used to analyze the data to identify differentially expressed genes associated with changing environments. These data will be further analyzed to identify probable regulatory elements and signals controlling the differentially-expressed genes. Additionally, reduced representation genomic libraries may be produced by one of several possible methods and sequenced using next generation sequencing technologies. The resulting data and subsequent bioinformatics methods will be used to identify molecular markers associated with the response of agronomically important traits for specific cultivars using a genome-wide association study approach.