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Expression of Drought‐Tolerant N 2 Fixation in Heterogeneous Inbred Families derived from PI471938 and Hutcheson Soybean
Author(s) -
Riar Mandeep K.,
Cerezini Paula,
Manandhar Anju,
Sinclair Thomas R.,
Li Zenglu,
Carter Thomas E.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
crop science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.76
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1435-0653
pISSN - 0011-183X
DOI - 10.2135/cropsci2017.02.0089
Subject(s) - biology , fixation (population genetics) , population , drought tolerance , nitrogen fixation , trait , fixation index , quantitative trait locus , inbred strain , genetics , genotype , botany , horticulture , gene , genetic variation , genetic structure , demography , sociology , bacteria , computer science , programming language
Nitrogen fixation of soybean [ Glycine max (L.) Merr.] is particularly vulnerable to drought, since, in most genotypes, N 2 fixation activity decreases very early in the soil drying cycle. Although a few soybean genotypes, including ‘PI 471938’, have been identified that express N 2 fixation tolerance of drought, it is unknown how readily this trait is transferred to progeny. Unfortunately, the techniques used to phenotype for the tolerance trait are either too crude or too labor‐intensive to allow the acquisition of data required for a classical inheritance assessment. In this study, a heterogeneous inbred family (HIF) population derived from PI 471938 × ‘Hutcheson’ was studied for its N 2 fixation drought tolerance to obtain a preliminary indication of the expression of this trait in progeny genotypes. An in situ flow‐through acetylene reduction assay was used to track the N 2 fixation rates of 13 HIFs over dry‐down periods lasting about 2 wk. There was a distinct segregation among the HIFs, with nine exhibiting tolerance equivalent to PI 471938 and four exhibiting sensitivity equal to or greater than Hutcheson. These results indicate that N 2 fixation drought tolerance might be transferred to progeny lines fairly readily, or at least retained in a selected population such as these HIFs.