Sunday, May 4, 2008
1-21

Genetic dissection of sorghum traits to enhance biofuel production

Wilfred Vermerris1, Ana Saballos1, Ken Lamb1, and Gebisa Ejeta2. (1) Genetics Institute and Agronomy department, University of Florida, 1376 Mowry Road, Gainesville, FL 32610-3610, (2) Agronomy, Purdue University, 915 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907

Sorghum offers inherent advantages that make it an attractive dedicated bioenergy crop able to generate sugars, starch and lignocellulosic biomass as feedstocks for ethanol and other green chemicals. What makes sorghum appealing is its tolerance to drought, ability to grow on poor soils, deep root system, and ability to produce a ratoon crop after the initial harvest.  There is also great genetic diversity for many useful traits, including high biomass production, high stem-sugar production, and cell wall composition.  Sweet-stem sorghums were originally grown for the production of syrup and molasses in primarily Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas. Expansion of sweet sorghums for ethanol production beyond those regions will require the production of regionally adapted cultivars that are resistant to specific diseases and that perform well on the local soil types. Since sugar accumulation in the juice is a multigenic trait, the development of regionally adapted sweet sorghums will be much more expedient if the loci that control sugar accumulation are known.  The same applies for genes affecting cell wall composition. Once the genes underlying these traits are known, it is possible to develop molecular markers that can be used for selection of the desired genotypes in a breeding population. We are using a genomics-based approach that combines high-throughput expression profiling, the sorghum genome sequence and two populations of recombinant inbred lines to identify and clone genes that impact bioprocessing characteristics.

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