Characterization of a genetically diverse collection of Trichloris crinita, a forage grass species native to the monte region of Argentina

KOZUB, C.; CAVAGNARO, P. F.; CAVAGNARO, J. B.; LAS PENAS, L.

Simposio; 5th International Symposium of Forage Breeding; 2015

Trichloris crinita (Lag.) Parodi (Poaceae, Chloridoideae), a widelydistributed C4 grass species native to the Argentine ?Monte? phytogeographical region, is a valuablegenetic resource for arid and semi-arid regions due to its good forage quality and droughttolerance. The Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de Zonas Áridas (IADIZA) created agermplasm bank of Trichloris crinita with seeds collected from natural populations throughout350.000 km2 of the Monte region. In the last years, our group has characterized these germplasmon the basis of morphological characters, biomass production, drought tolerance, anddry matter partitioning. Biomass production varied almost 9-fold between the most and the leastproductive accessions. Relative variation in biomass production among the accessions wereconsistent over three years and three sites (three environments) suggesting a genetic basisfor this trait. Genetic diversity among Trichloris crinita accessions was assessed using AFLPmolecular markers. As result, an AFLP-based dendrogram revealed clustering of the accessionsbased upon their biomass production. In addition, AFLP fingerprints allowed thediscrimination of all the accessions evaluated. Cytogenetic studies, including chromosome countsand karyotype descriptions, were performed. The resulting data for all T. crinitaaccessions were consistent with a  ploidy level of 2n=4x=40, as previously proposed for thisspecies. In order to increase themolecular resources in this species, 100 SSRs markers were developedusing nucleotidesequences of related species to T. crinita. In this work, advances inthe genetic,  physiological and phenotypic characterization of a genetically diverse T. crinitacollection are presented and discussed.