Articles
G×E INTERACTION IN LETTUCE BOLTING PHENOMENA
Article number
1100_21
Pages
141 – 144
Language
English
Abstract
Lettuce is an annual, monoecious, autogamous plant of the wide family of
Compositae or Asteraceae.
The first reports of lettuce show that its origin come from
Egypt and Mediterranean basin.
Lettuce was used during the history for different
purpose and has been effected from the domestication selection.
Today, the production
of lettuce is around the 25 million tons/year over the world (NCSU, 2011). Bolting is the
transition from the vegetative phase to the reproductive one.
During bolting changes
occur in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites: these compounds give the lettuce
plant a bitter taste and render the crop unsalable.
The development of late bolting
varieties, with a better holding ability in the field, would result in an extension of the
growing season.
In many plants, the timing of the transition from vegetative growth to
flowering is controlled by environmental factors which serve to induce sexual
reproduction and seed formation.
Studies in Arabidopsis led to the identification of
several different pathways that act together in the regulation of flowering time (Abbott,
2010). The aim of this work is highlight genotypic (G), environmental (E) and G×E
effects in lettuce cultivars which shows differences in bolting time. 150 varieties of
lettuce were grown in 3 environments and 2 seasons and phenotypized for bolting time
with a newly ideal scale of values.
Then, we were able to analyze the transition from the
vegetative phase to the reproductive one with a linear regression model.
This study
allowed to distinguish two different traits: bolting beginning (BB) and bolting speed
(BS). For the most of the varieties, a model showed a good fit with the equation of the
line, where the slope represents the bolting speed and the value of the intercept
represents the bolting beginning.
These values are consistent with the phenotypic data.
We used these data to compare bolting beginning and bolting speed of the same variety
indifferent environment and evaluate the G×E effect with ANOVA analysis.
Compositae or Asteraceae.
The first reports of lettuce show that its origin come from
Egypt and Mediterranean basin.
Lettuce was used during the history for different
purpose and has been effected from the domestication selection.
Today, the production
of lettuce is around the 25 million tons/year over the world (NCSU, 2011). Bolting is the
transition from the vegetative phase to the reproductive one.
During bolting changes
occur in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites: these compounds give the lettuce
plant a bitter taste and render the crop unsalable.
The development of late bolting
varieties, with a better holding ability in the field, would result in an extension of the
growing season.
In many plants, the timing of the transition from vegetative growth to
flowering is controlled by environmental factors which serve to induce sexual
reproduction and seed formation.
Studies in Arabidopsis led to the identification of
several different pathways that act together in the regulation of flowering time (Abbott,
2010). The aim of this work is highlight genotypic (G), environmental (E) and G×E
effects in lettuce cultivars which shows differences in bolting time. 150 varieties of
lettuce were grown in 3 environments and 2 seasons and phenotypized for bolting time
with a newly ideal scale of values.
Then, we were able to analyze the transition from the
vegetative phase to the reproductive one with a linear regression model.
This study
allowed to distinguish two different traits: bolting beginning (BB) and bolting speed
(BS). For the most of the varieties, a model showed a good fit with the equation of the
line, where the slope represents the bolting speed and the value of the intercept
represents the bolting beginning.
These values are consistent with the phenotypic data.
We used these data to compare bolting beginning and bolting speed of the same variety
indifferent environment and evaluate the G×E effect with ANOVA analysis.
Authors
M. Beretta, F. Donati, T. Ciriaci, E. Sabatini
Keywords
Lactuca sativa, G×E interaction, bolting, flowering time, linear regression, heritability
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