In southwest China, between 1600 meters and 3100 meters above sea level, there is a kind of ugly grass called "duck grass" on the forest edge and hillside grassland. This humble grass, however, is one of the four widely cultivated grasses in the world. It is not only suitable for green forage, silage or hay making, but also plays an important role in the development of grass husbandry in marginal land and deep poverty areas of rocky desertification due to its strong adaptability, drought resistance and resistance to barren.

The team has completed the sequencing of the whole genome of duck MAO, which is the first genome sequencing in the field of herbage in China, and will provide a strong guarantee for breeding more high-quality, high-yield and adaptable herbage. In the past, scientists have mainly used traditional breeding methods to improve the yield, quality and resistance of duck grass, but it takes about 15 years to develop a new variety with low efficiency. However, with the help of the new technology of molecular breeding, the use of molecular marker assisted selection (MAS) and gene editing technology can greatly speed up the breeding process and shorten the breeding cycle to 8-10 years, which requires the support of the genomic information database of the plant.

For the first time, the team has published a high-quality reference genome of duck grass, the first of its kind in China.This is a good quality database of the genome of duck grass, with a relevant quality index more than 50 times that of ryegrass.Previously, there were only shamrock and ryegrass genome databases worldwide in the field of forage grass. This completed genome contains 400,088 genes, of which 1,173 are endemic genes. Most of these special genes are related to strong adaptability, drought and cold tolerance of grass plants. Therefore, these genetic resources can also be used in the genetic improvement of the quality of the related crops such as cold and drought resistance of wheat.

Time: 2020.01.09

Source: http://www.hainan.gov.cn