Browsing by Author "Kayaga, Helen Ninsiima"
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- ItemCharacterisation of EMS mutagenic bread wheat (Triticum aestivum l.) lines to investigate their water deficit stress tolerance and adaptability(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-03) Kayaga, Helen Ninsiima; Botha-Oberholster, Anna-Maria; Van der Vyver, Christell; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Agrisciences. Dept. of Genetics.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Wheat is a staple food for 2.5 billion people worldwide and is the second most important cereal grain grown in South Africa. Water deficit stress has adverse effects on wheat productivity in the world. This is exacerbated under current unpredictable climatic patterns due to global warming. In 2017, most of the wheat production areas in South Africa were lost to alternate crops due to prevailing drought conditions. This created a need to develop water deficit stress tolerant wheat lines using ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) because currently, no officially released varieties in the country carry such a trait. This study aimed to characterise newly developed mutagenic water stress-resilient bread wheat lines. The agro-morphological traits of three wild types and ten M3 lines were determined based on wheat descriptors in a randomised experiment with three replicates in a greenhouse. The chemical properties of flour were measured using the Inframatic 9500 NIR Grain Analyser machine, and the sedimentation tests of flour were quantified using the AACC International Method 56-60.02. The M3 lines were screened for tolerance to water deficit stress in a split-plot (3x5 factorial) experimental design that induced stress at the following growth stages: stress at seedling growth (emergence), tillering (forty days after planting), anthesis (flowering), milk development stage (seed set), and control (well-watered), and 13 subplots (bread wheat lines). Results from the analysis indicated a variation in the agro- morphological traits (18 traits) of mutants from the wild types (WTs) aside from ten traits that were similar across all bread wheat lines. Baking quality analysis showed that mutant Big 8.3 had the most desirable moisture content percentage of flour, a high protein, and wet gluten. Hence its dough has good elasticity and extensibility. The mutants performed better than WTs under water deficit stress. Big 395.1 was the most tolerant at emergence and forty days after planting, while Big 8.1 and Big 8.3 were most tolerant to water deficit stress at flowering and seed set, respectively. Previously identified drought-related genes, Sal1 (an inositol polyphosphate 1- phosphatase encoding gene) and Era1 (enhanced response to Abscisic acid 1), were analysed for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) variants induced by chemical mutagenesis through sequencing complementary DNA (cDNA) of the genes and aligning them to the reference wheat genome of “Chinese Spring” available on the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) web-based platform. I could not attain results from the Era1 sequences, and alignment results showed no differences between the Sal1 sequences of the mutant lines to that of reference genome “Chinese Spring”. In conclusion, chemical mutagenesis increased the genetic diversity of the parental bread wheat lines through induction of point mutations resulting in desirable new mutant lines like Big 8.3 with a desirable agrotype, baking quality characteristics, and high tolerance to water deficit stress at seed set.