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Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
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Branching in red clover (Trifolium pratense): a morphological, physiological and
molecular approach
Annemie Van Minnebruggen 1 , Isabel Roldán-Ruiz 1 , Carolien Ruyter-Spira 2 , Harro Bouwmeester 2 ,
Erik Van Bockstaele 1 , Gerda Cnops 1
1
Plant Sciences Unit – Growth and Development, Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research, Melle,
Belgium
2
Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Red clover has several advantages in agriculture: the ability to fixate nitrogen, high seedling
vigour and high nutritional value for feed and indirectly for food (high protein and
polyunsaturated fatty acid levels). Plant architecture, which is under genetic and environmental
control, may have a strong influence on agronomic important traits such as forage yield, regrowth
capacity, seed yield and persistence in red clover. We have done an in-depth study of the
architecture of a limited number of red clover genotypes with contrasting branching phenotypes.
A detailed morphological analysis showed differences in the number of buds, the number of
branches, the position of bud outgrowth and bud outgrowth percentage in the different
genotypes. Also, differences were observed in the re-growth after cutting between the genotypes.
In a physiological approach, isolated single node fragments were used to study the influence of
branching hormones on bud outgrowth without having to deal with the complex architecture of
a complete red clover plant (non-outgrowing main axis, many first-order branches). These results
will be linked to expression levels of branching genes. In addition, we determined concentrations
of endogenous strigolactones and auxins in intact plants of the various genotypes. The results
demonstrate that both bud formation and bud outgrowth are important to explain branching
differences in red clover. The importance of the strigolactone and auxin pathways as candidates
for further analysis and molecular breeding for high yielding and more persistent red clover
cultivars will be discussed.
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