Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Project Abstract
Leveraging variation in immune response to understand and improve avenanthramide
production and disease resistance in oat
Oat (Avena sativa L.) seeds contain a suite of health-promoting compounds, some of which also
contribute to plant disease resistance. It is beneficial to oat growers, processors and consumers to
improve consistency and output of these compounds to increase oat value as a highly nutritional
food and to expand the cultivation of this sustainable crop. In this project, we seek to investigate
how we can we leverage oat genetic variation and management practices to increase seed
avenanthramides (antioxidants) by triggering the plant immune response, and testing how both
avenanthramides and immune modification can reduce severity of multiple diseases: crown rust,
Fusarium head blight, barley yellow dwarf virus and loose smut. We will conduct greenhouse
and field trials and couple them to metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses to provide
immediate deliverables for growers, inform cultivar selection, and create a foundation of
knowledge for plant breeding. The specific objectives of this proposal are to (1) characterize
genetic variation in oat seed avenanthramides when immune responses are triggered, (2) test if
immune modification increases disease resistance, and (3) assess genotype-by-environment
variance to identify and characterize environments in which immune modification may be most
productive. This work fits the AFRI program priority of improving crop nutrition and disease
resistance through pre-breeding efforts that incorporate applied quantitative genetics and
phenomics. This project also uses an innovative approach – testing and breeding for response
immune modification – where oat could serve as a model for similar application of these
practices in other small grains and other crops.
Status | Active |
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Effective start/end date | 9/1/23 → 8/31/26 |
Funding
- National Institute of Food and Agriculture: $649,906.00
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