Qld teams with US researchers in drought crop project

Collaborative agreements between researchers at the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and three major US universities - Texas A&M University, Texas Tech and the University of Missouri - could lead to development of drought resistant crops.

The agreements focus on the Stay-Green trait in sorghum plants, a phenotype that allows the plant to continue filling its grain under water-limited conditions.

"There has been a lot of interest in this trait globally as water is becoming a limited resource," said Dr Andrew Borrell, a plant physiologist at DPI's Hermitage Research Station near Warwick in Queensland.

Borrell led the negotiations with the US institutions and said that the agreements recognised the excellence of the DPI's sorghum research program.

Researchers at Hermitage have been studying the Stay-Green trait for more than two decades, under the direction of Dr Bob Henzell.

According to Borrell, four genomic regions have been mapped that correspond to the Stay-Green trait.

The DPI group plans to use a set of isogenic sorghum lines for these Stay-Green associated regions to look at the gene function of each of the chromosomal locations. The isogenic lines were developed in the US.

"The American universities do not have our capacity to test sorghum germplasm in a wide range of environments, nor do they have a strong physiology program, although their laboratories and biotechnology facilities, particularly at Texas A&M, are fantastic," said Borrell.

"We'll send the results of our work back to the US for them to assist in the identification of candidate genes for Stay-Green. RNA [ribonucleic acid] samples will also be sent to Texas A&M University for microarray analysis to determine which genes have increased or decreased activity under drought conditions."

Borrell said that genes associated with increased water use efficiency, reduced rate of leaf senescence, higher leaf nitrogen status or increased nitrogen uptake under drought conditions might be among those identified.

Ultimately, the genes could be used not just to improve sorghum crops for drought areas, but also to identify analogous genes in other cereal crops including wheat, barley, maize and rice.

Borrell said that under the terms of the agreement, the DPI would get 25 per cent of any equity associated with gene discovery coming from the program upfront. Of the remaining equity, 45 per cent would go to Texas A&M and the rest would be divided between Texas Tech and the University of Missouri.