Assessment of european rye populations for their ability to restore male fertility in two genetically distinct systems of cytoplasmic male sterility
摘要
Rye (Secale cereale L.) is an open-pollinated small grain cereal primarily grown in Central and Eastern Europe. Due to the significant effects of heterosis, rye is ideally suited for breeding hybrid cultivars that require the use of the Cytoplasmic Male Sterility (CMS) phenomenon for seed production. There are two genetically distinct systems of CMS in rye: Pampa (CMS-P) and Vavilovii (CMS-V). Our study aimed to assess various European population varieties concerning their ability to restore male fertility in rye with both investigated sterility-inducing cytoplasms. System CMS-V was represented by an alternative source of cytoplasm – CMS-C. Field experiments were conducted from 2009 to 2018, during which over 16,500 individual plants were phenotyped. Among the studied populations were historical European landraces, currently registered cultivars and promising breeding populations from the DANKO Hodowla Roślin Ltd (Choryń, Poland) breeding program. As expected from previous research, the studied populations were abundant in restorer alleles for the CMS-V system, while the restoration of male fertility in rye with Pampa cytoplasm remained low. However, we observed some new trends when comparing old European populations to the newer ones. The frequency of restorer alleles has increased over time, while non-restorer genes have been eliminated. This trend is more noticeable for the Pampa cytoplasm, where the frequency of non-restorer alleles in European populations was originally extremely high. The obtained results are discussed in the context of the existing knowledge regarding the presence of sterility inducing cytoplasms in rye populations and their selection impact on nuclear genes.