The agronomic potential of natural genetic variation in wild flax

Novelty: This project will provide an unprecedented genome-wide perspective of the natural genetic variation in wild flax, allowing the identification of performance-related genes and molecular mechanisms with a particular emphasis on flowering time as a trait of key importance in improving the response of cultivated flax to future climate change. This work will provide the basis to conserve and use genetic variation in an important crop.
Research training: The student will gain bioinformatics skills that are in high demand both within academia and in wider industry. The project in general will require attention to detail, careful logical thought, and excellent numeracy, all of which are highly desirable transferable skills across all work sectors.
Background: There is a growing appreciation of the value of maintaining and investigating natural genetic variation in wild crop relatives as a vital buffer against the impact of unpredictable environmental hazards. Recent declines in productivity and yield have been associated with increases in temperature, which threatens food security worldwide. These trends correlate with changes in plant life cycle, particularly with shifts in flowering time in response to increasing temperatures. This is a major concern because flowering is a trait that strongly affects vegetative growth, fruit production and seed yield, all of which are important performance traits. Many plants are both temperature and light sensitive so responses to changing temperatures can result in maladaptive responses to other seasonal cues in future.
We now have substantial knowledge of the genes involved in flowering initiation and the environmental cues leading to flowering time variation, although this is mostly limited to model research species. Understanding the genetic variation of flowering initiation is particularly valuable in wild crop relatives with large geographic distributions because they will show genetic variation adapted to different climatic conditions. Applying new genomic tools to study these phenomena in wild progenitors possesses huge potential for translating findings into the genetic improvement of cultivated crops.
Aims and methods: In this project, we will characterize natural variation in flowering time and correlated performance-related traits of wild flax. We will perform phenotyping and genotyping studies to determine the genetic and environmental components of natural variation. We will determine the potential for introducing natural genetic variation of value for plant breeding into flax.