Recently, the forage breeding and cultivation technology innovation team of the Beijing Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences conducted a group structure and differentiation analysis between different geographical origin subgroups of alfalfa germplasm resources at home and abroad, and the study showed that alfalfa from China has formed an independent subgroup in the long-term selection process, laying a theoretical foundation for the subsequent molecular design and breeding of alfalfa. The findings were published in the Journal of Integrative Plant Biology
According to Yang Qingchuan, the chief researcher of the team, alfalfa is the most important legume forage in the world and is known as the "king of forage". Alfalfa is native to Transcaucasia, Iran and Asia Minor. In 119 BC, the Han envoy Zhang Qian sent an envoy to the Western Regions to bring alfalfa seeds back to China, and alfalfa began to be cultivated in China. At present, China's alfalfa planting area of about 65 million mu, but the breeding varieties are small, can not meet the needs of alfalfa planting in various places, restricting the development of China's alfalfa industry and herbivorous animal husbandry.
Global alfalfa diversity population structure
The researchers resequenced 220 core germplasm resources of Alfalfa alfalfa. Population structure analysis shows that Alfalfa species in China have formed an independent subgroup in the long process of domestication and improvement, indicating that geographical sources play an important role in the differentiation of alfalfa populations. Through the analysis of the influence of different geographical regions on the genetic diversity of Alfalfa species in China, 350 common candidate genetic regions and 686 selected genes were identified, of which 17 selection regions closely related to phenotype showed significant differences between subgroups of different geographical origins. Combining expression analysis and associative localization results, the researchers also identified multiple candidate genes associated with alfalfa root development.
It is understood that the research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Science and Technology Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Source: Guangming Network
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