New publication: Drought tolerance and regrowth capacity revealed in the Festuca-Lolium complex

New publication: Drought tolerance and regrowth capacity revealed in the Festuca-Lolium complex
Annotation:

Our Centre is not only a place of excellent fundamental research. We also aim in helping breeders with their tasks. One of our last activity spans into the field of drought tolerance in forage grasses. Modelling of future climate indicates that this trait will be one of the key characteristics necessary to mitigate the impacts of climate change (especially the increased frequencies of summer drought periods). In collaboration with breeders from DLF Seeds (Hladke Zivotice, Czech Republic), we conducted 3years multi-species phenotyping for the drought tolerance and recovery within the forage grass complex Festuca-Lolium. We identified the most promising species (Festuca mairei and F. glaucescens), which have the potential to be used in breeding practice, either as pure species, or for introgression into the elite cultivars of cultivated species. The successful acquiring of drought tolerance has been revealed in Festulolium krasanii (hybrid of Lolium multiflorum and F. arundinacea). New hybridization of F. mairei and F. glaucescens with ryegrasses (Lolium sp.) could bring new (maybe even more efficient) sources of drought tolerance pathway and help to sustain ecological and economical roles of grasslands under changed climate in future.  

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