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WRI Webinar: Simon Michelmore, SARDI Crop Improvement
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Simon Michelmore –Teenage Mutant Pulse Crops – hormonal signalling changes in herbicide tolerant peas
SARDI Crop Improvement and School of Ag, Food and Wine
WHEN: Thursday 18th November 2021, 10am
Abstract
Pulse legumes are high-value crops with well-known rotational benefits to sustainable cropping systems. With limited safe herbicide options available and poor crop competition, weeds remains a major production constraint in the Australian pulse industry. Novel herbicide tolerance traits provide much-needed weed control options that reduce input costs, increase profits and allow growers greater flexibility in their rotations. Tolerance to the synthetic auxin herbicide clopyralid has been developed through mutagenesis screening and found to be conferred by mutations in AUXIN-SIGNALLING F-BOX PROTEIN 4/5 (AFB4/5) which is both the target-site of the herbicide and one of three receptor proteins responsible for the transcriptional response to the plant hormone auxin. Interrupting hormone perception has diverse and complex effects on plant growth and development. Clopyralid tolerant plants show a range of herbicide tolerance levels and varying severities of altered shoot branching, reduced seed size and yield, depending on which allele is present. With several alleles of afb4/5 now identified, the role of this gene in the key developmental processes of shoot branching and reproduction are being investigated to better understand how these important agronomic traits are regulated in pulses – or indeed, dysregulated in herbicide tolerant genotypes.
Bio
Simon has been with the SARDI Molecular Genetics group at the Waite campus for 6 years working as a Research Officer on a series of projects led by SARDI and the University of Adelaide and funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) to develop novel herbicide tolerance traits in pulse crops. Simon is now studying a PhD at UoA to investigate the effects of tolerance to a synthetic auxin herbicide on plant growth and development with a focus on plant architecture and reproduction in field pea. This PhD project is supported by an Australian government Research Training Program Scholarship and a GRDC Grains Research Scholarship.
Register at: https://adelaide.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4UeydCDbSLaezyoo-ywrpw