English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Artemisia annua  is an important medicinal crop used for the production of the anti-malarial compound artemisinin. In order to assist in the production of affordable high quality artemisinin we have carried out an  A. annua  breeding programme aimed at improving artemisinin concentration and biomass. Here we report on a combining ability analysis of a diallel cross to identify robust parental lines for hybrid breeding. The parental lines were selected based on a range of phenotypic traits to encourage heterosis. The general combining ability (GCA) values for the diallel parental lines correlated to the positive alleles of quantitative trait loci (QTL) in the same parents indicating the presence of beneficial alleles that contribute to parental performance. Hybrids generated from crossing specific parental lines with good GCA were identified as having an increase in both artemisinin concentration and biomass when grown either in glasshouse or experimental field trials and compared to controls. This study demonstrates that combining ability as determined by a diallel cross can be used to identify elite parents for the production of improved  A. annua  hybrids. Furthermore, the selection of material for breeding using this approach was found to be consistent with our QTL-based molecular breeding approach.

The Use of Combining Ability Analysis to Identify Elite Parents for Artemisia annua F1 Hybrid Production