AIR3-CT94-1941 Applications of Biotechnology for Reduced Inputs in Disease Protection and Nitrogen Fertilisation of Rapeseed Cultivation

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AIR Cluster X - Inputs for Non-Food Crops : Biotechnology : Crops for Bulk Chemicals : Integrated Crop Protection & Biological Control : Plant Genetics : Vegetable Oil/Fat

	Contract No	AIR3-CT94-1941
	Total Cost	181 000
	EC Contribution	171 000
	Start Date	01/01/1995
	Duration	36 months

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OBJECTIVE:

The present state of biotechnological knowledge in rapeseed is ready for important applications such as lowering the inputs in rapeseed productions.

The Concerted Action is proposed to strengthen ongoing molecular and genetic research work to further increase the ecological compatibility and to reduce the production costs of rapeseed by increasing the nitrogen uptake and nitrogen use efficiency as well as by improving genetic mechanisms of disease resistance.

For Phoma lingam, the most severe fungal rapeseed disease, different molecular approaches to tag and to isolate the plant resistance genes have been started in all three countries of the present applicants. Within the Concerted Action the different approaches will be compared, information exchanged and further experimental work will be coordinated.

Nitrogen uptake and nitrogen use efficiency being another critical point in ecological rapeseed production is the second target of mutual interest, that is very complex and known for long. Strategies to tackle this problem are just now being started. Within the proposed Concerted Action the activities of the participating research groups will be organised. Work will be directed to new informations about metabolic control points of N-metabolism in rapeseed by performing transformation experiments with genes of critical enzymes in the nitrogen pathway.

The large efforts made to isolate various plant genes of agricultural importance have provided many promising gene constructs which are now available for testing. However, a bottleneck for further utilisation of the gene constructs is the transformation of important breeding lines and cultivars. Considering the increasing public awareness of ecological risks, transformation methods of interest are those which allow integration of 'genes of interest' and the 'selectable marker gene' at different positions in the genome in order to facilitate the subsequent elimination of the marker in segregating offsprings. Relevant approaches are co-transformation of explants by A. rhizogenes and A. tumefaciens, and of microspores and microspore-derived embryoids by electroporation and use of the particle gun. This work is the third part of the proposed Concerted Action.

Contacts

Coordinator

• Gerhard ROEBBELEN / Georg August Universität Göttingen Institut fur Pflanzenbau und Planzenzuchtung / GERMANY