Turfgrass Breeding 101: Making the Right Selections
Garett Heineck Postdoctoral Associate Departments of Horticultural Science and Agronomy and Plant Genetics University of Minnesota In the last Turfgrass Breeding 101 article, Dr. Watkins explained the gist of the University of Minnesota turfgrass breeding program and also went into some depth on the history of turfgrass breeding in the United States. Through a short description of genes and introduction of the concept of heritability, readers learned about the importance of phenotypic (what a plant looks like) variation. There are often multiple versions of any one gene within a turfgrass species: these are called alleles. Changes in allele frequency are, in large part, the cause of phenotypic diversity among cultivars.
can make selections challenging for plant breeders; however, challenges also arise when a cultivar’s phenotype does not remain stable across multiple growing environments. These changes are not due to the cultivar’s allelic frequency fluctuating from one location to another, instead a sort of “nature verses nurture” conundrum occurs, which breeders refer to as population-byenvironment interaction.
Dr. Watkins described that the number of gene copies, or ploidy,
Phenotypic instability can occur for many reasons. For instance,
Page 12
This Turfgrass Breeding 101 article will delve into strategies plant breeders use to make the right selections and optimize plant phenotype across growing environments.