Growth under cold conditions in a wide perennial ryegrass panel is under tight physiological control
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Agricultural Science, Plant Science
- Keywords
- Cold stress, perennial ryegrass, acclimation to cold stress, physiological control
- Copyright
- © 2018 Förster et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Growth under cold conditions in a wide perennial ryegrass panel is under tight physiological control. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26620v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26620v2
Abstract
Background. Perennial ryegrass is a cool-season grass species from the family Poaceae and is widely cultivated in temperate regions because it exhibits rapid growth and establishment, and possesses high forage quality. The extension of the growing season in Ireland in spring and autumn is a breeding target to make farming more profitable since a rass-fed diet based on grazing is the cheapest way of nutrition for ruminants. Methods. Fifty-seven perennial ryegrass accessions were screened for their ability to grow under typical Irish spring conditions as taken from long term emperature records in controlled climate chambers. They were grown in low temperature (8°C/2°C day/night) and control conditions (15°C/8°C day/night) in three consecutive independent experiments. Fresh weight, height, clorophyll content and electrolyte leakage were measured, and these parameters were used to rank plant performance under low temperature growth conditions. Results. The results showed that height, yield and electrolyte leakage are xcellent measures for the impact of cold stress tolerance. Little variation in growth was seen undercold stress, but a wide variety of responses were observed under control conditions. Discussion. Our results suggest that cold stress is under tight physiological control. Interestingly, the various genotypes responded differentially to more amenable control conditions, indicating that a quick response to more amenable growth conditions is a better target for breeding programmes.
Author Comment
This preprint has been updated to accommodate the comments of three expert referees.
Supplemental Information
The fifty-seven accessions of perennial ryegrass, their origin, ploidy status, maturity group and further information
The fifty-seven accessions of perennial ryegrass, their origin, ploidy status, maturity group and further information.
Irishweather data averages from Met Éireann (The Irish Meterological Service, www.met.ie )
Irish weather data averages from Met Éireann (The Irish Meterological Service, www.met.ie ) for January, February, March, April and May of the weather stations and years: Malin Head 1981–2010, Kilkenny 1978–2007, Shannon Airport 1981–2010, Dublin Airport 1981–2010, Birr 1979-2008, Belmullet 1981–2010, Clones 1978–2007, Cork Airport 1981–2010, Mullingar 1979–2008, Rosslare 1978-2007 and Valentia 1981–2010.
Freshweight (g) at day 73 for the 57 accessions grown under cold stress and controlconditions.
Fresh weight (g) at day 73 for the 57 accessions grown under cold stress and control conditions. The letters represent significant different groups according to an ANOVA test and a Tukey ranking test. Both accession and treatment were highly significant.
Plantheight (cm) at day 67 for the 57 accessions grown under cold stress and controlconditions.
Plant height (cm) at day 67 for the 57 accessions grown under cold stress and control conditions. The letters represent significant different groups according to an ANOVA test and a Tukey ranking test. Both accession and treatment were highly significant.
Electrolyteleakage at day 70 for the 57 accessions grown under cold stress andcontrol conditions.
Electrolyte leakage at day 70 for the 57 accessions grown under cold stress and control conditions. The letters represent significant different groups according to an ANOVA test and a Tukey ranking test. The factor treatment was highly significant.
Chlorophyllcontent at day 67 of the 57 accessions grownunder cold stress and control conditions .
Chlorophyll content at day 67 of the 57 accessions grown under cold stress and control conditions . The letters represent significant different groups according to an ANOVA test and a Tukey ranking test. Neither factor, accession or treatment, was significant.
(A)Plotted growth height raw data of experiment 3 for control and cold treatmentand (B) modelled growth height data of experiment 3 for control and coldtreatment.
(A) Plotted growth height raw data of experiment 3 for control and cold treatment and (B) modelled growth height data of experiment 3 for control and cold treatment.
Raw data for all traits measured in experiments 1, 2 and 3 for 57 perennial ryegrass accessions
Raw data for all traits measured in experiments 1, 2 and 3 for 57 perennial ryegrass accessions.