Kromdijk Group: Are photosynthesis and nutritious quality genetically linked in leafy vegetable crops?
This is a BBSRC Targeted project and applications must be made via the Cambridge Biosciences DTP PhD Programme website. Project Reference: TRG27-PLA-JK2
Supervisor
Dr Johannes Kromdijk
Brief summary
Changing climate conditions and a growing global population are increasingly putting pressure on food provision. While the green revolution realized productivity gains via industrial production of fertilizer as well as the gradual introduction of dwarfing varieties to boost planting density and harvest index, these strategies are unlikely to deliver further substantial gains. To help further enhance crop productivity per unit land area, photosynthesis is often coined as a relatively unexplored strategy. However, this strategy is often focused primarily on a narrow set of staple crops to deliver sufficient calories. This project will study if targeting photosynthesis traits can also deliver enhanced nutritional quality in a leafy vegetable crop.
Importance of research
Improving indigenous leafy vegetable crops can offer a way to enhance climate resilience of food supply chains in some of the areas that are already most affected by shifts in weather patterns, as well as enhance livelihoods of small-holder farmers.
Project summary
Human food needs to be sufficiently nutritious in ways beyond caloric content, and this is where indigenous leafy vegetable crops can play a key role. One such crops is Gynandropsis gynandra, which is fast-growing, stress-tolerant and increasingly appreciated as a commercial crop across East and West Africa. Interestingly, while photosynthesis is usually seen as a means to enhance biomass productivity, the nutritional quality of leaves is determined to a high degree by shared attributes with photosynthesis, i.e. leaf protein, pigments, phosphorus, iron, vitamins C and E, and various other nutrients are directly linked to photosynthetic activity of leaves. This begs the question whether selection for photosynthetic properties to enhance productivity inadvertently affects leaf nutritional quality, and if so, whether this effect will be positive or negative.
What will the successful applicant do?
This project will leverage a newly developed Nested Association Mapping panel of Gynandropsis gynandra, via an ongoing collaboration with partners at NIAB, Wageningen (NL) and Benin, to perform parallel genetic mapping studies on leaf nutritious quality and photosynthetic traits to assess the overlap in genetic architecture and existence of pleiotropic genomic loci. The strongest genetic associations will be progressed further to test if genotypic or phenotypic selection for nutritious quality or photosynthetic performance will maintain significant associations across generations of backcrossing. The outcomes will increase understanding of the putative link between photosynthesis and nutritious quality of leafy vegetables, as well as provide advanced breeding lines for crop improvement of Gynandropsis gynandra.
References
Contact
Research group
Environmental Plant Physiology
BBSRC strategic theme
Bioscience for sustainable agriculture and food