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USDA Agricultural Research Service
"Fingerprinting" Helps Make Great Grapes Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:49:00 -0500
Genetic
fingerprints, now being developed for the 2,800 wild, rare and domesticated
grapes in ARS's northern California genebank, will help grape breeders pinpoint
unusual characteristics. Click the image for more information about
it.
Autumn King seedless
grapes: Big and luscious!
Thomcord grape: Flavorful,
attractiveand seedless!
Sweet Scarlet grape: New
variety readied for growers
Fingerprinting Helps Make Great
Grapes By Marcia
Wood August 26, 2008
At about this time next year, nearly all of the 2,800 wild, rare and
domesticated grapes in a unique northern California genebank will have had
their "genetic profile" or fingerprint taken. These fingerprints
may help grape breeders pinpoint plants in the collection that have unusual
traits--ones that might appeal to shoppers in tomorrow's supermarkets. Other
grapes might be ideal for scientists who are doing basic research.
Thats according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant
geneticist
Mallikarjuna
Aradhya. He's heading the grape fingerprinting venture.
The grape collection that Aradhya is fingerprinting encompasses
vineyards and screened enclosures, called screenhouses." It is part of
whats officially known as the ARS
National
Clonal Germplasm Repository for Tree Fruit and Nut Crops and Grapes, in
Davis, Calif.
To glean a distinctive genetic fingerprint of each member of the
collection, Aradhya uses pieces of genetic material--or DNA--known as
microsatellite markers. Eight markers are all that are needed for a genetic
fingerprint of more familiar grapes, like close relatives of those already used
for making wine or raisins or for eating out-of-hand.
But the lesser-known ones--wild grapes and some prized types from
China, for instance--require twice as many markers for reliable identification.
Thats due, in part, to the fact that the taxonomy, or relatedness of one
kind of grape to another, is quite jumbled, Aradhya noted.
He has already fingerprinted 1,100 better-known grapes and 300 wild
specimens.
ARS is a scientific research agency of the
U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
Hydrogen-Producing Bacteria Studied Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:15:00 -0500
Researchers are now identifying nitrogen-fixing
bacteria that release all of the hydrogen the microbes produce, which could
lead to a new hydrogen source for fuel cells. Photo courtesy of Department
of Energy.
Switchgrass: Bridging
bioenergy and conservation
Biofuel crops double as
greenhouse-gas reducers
Making gas from crop
residue
Hydrogen-Producing Bacteria Provide Clean Energy
By Rosalie Marion
Bliss
August 25, 2008 A new "green" technology
developed cooperatively by scientists with the
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and
North Carolina State University (NC State)
could lead to production of hydrogen from nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
Renewable sources of energysuch as hydrogenthat don't produce
pollutants or greenhouse gases are needed to solve global energy shortages.
Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas are nonrenewable energy sources
implicated in global warming.
The invention holds promise as a source of hydrogen for use in fuel cell
technology. Fuel cell devices combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce
electricity and water, and are considered efficient, quiet and pollution-free.
Fuel cells are now being tested in a range of products, including automobiles
that release no emissions other than water vapor.
ARS inventors Paul Bishop and
Telisa
Loveless and NC State inventors Jonathan Olson and José
Bruno-Bárcena developed the patent-pending technology.
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria play a key role in agriculture. They live in soil
and on certain plant roots, and convert nitrogen from the air into a chemical
form that plants can use to grow. The researchers developed a way to identify
strains of these bacteria that produce hydrogen gas.
Bishop first demonstrated novel aspects of bacterial nitrogen-fixing more
than two decades ago. Building on that work, the team developed a method that
uses a selecting agent to identify these special hydrogen-producing strains.
The selecting agent allows researchers to identify these bacterial strains
without the need for genomic sequencing or genetic modification.
Using the selecting agent, the inventors identified a gene that inactivates
the bacteria's hydrogen uptake system so that all of the hydrogen produced is
released. Because the bacterial cells cannot recycle the hydrogen, the hydrogen
they produce can be captured and used as a fuel whose byproduct is water and
heat.
Licensing information can be obtained by contacting the
ARS
Office of Technology Transfer or the Office of Technology Transfer at NC State.
ARS is a scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Chickpea Fungus Investigated Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:26:00 -0500
Chickpeas. Photo courtesy of
USDA/GIPSA.
Likeable legume snacks
from ARS research
Meeting showcases
anti-Sclerotinia research
New chickpea variety
available for legume lovers
Scientists Tie Chickpea Disease to Fungal Culprit
By Jan Suszkiw
August 22, 2008 The fungus Sclerotinia
trifoliorum plagues legume crops worldwide. But chickpeas seem to have
escaped its wrath, with the exception of Australia's crop. Now, that's no
longer the case, report Agricultural Research
Service (ARS) and collaborative university scientists.
During the 2005-06 chickpea growing season in central California, the team
observed stem and crown rots reminiscent of Sclerotinia infection. But
subtle irregularities in the symptoms led the researchers to believe their
prime suspectS. sclerotiorum, which infects more 400 plant
specieshad an accomplice, namely S. trifoliorum.
ARS research plant pathologist
Weidong
Chen led the team, which included Fred Muehlbauer (now retired) with the
ARS
Grain Legume Genetics Physiology Research Unit in Pullman, Wash., and
University of California-Davis
and Washington State University researchers.
They examined 10 Sclerotinia isolates from their collection from
chickpea stems and subjected each to three identification criteria: growth
rate, ascospore morphology and DNA markers indicative of S. trifoliorum.
The team's analysis showed that S. trifoliorum isolates were
slower-growing, displayed "ascospore dimorphism," which is the
formation of two versions of the same spore type, and harbored a set of group I
intron markers while S. sclerotiorum did not.
Chen suspects S. trifoliorum's occurrence on central California
chickpeas stems from prior plantings of alfalfaanother legume
hostand not an accidental introduction from Australia, the only continent
where the fungus has previously been reported on chickpea. Identification of
this new chickpea pathogen should aid in improving disease-management practices
and developing resistant chickpea cultivars for farmers.
The research is part of the ARS
National Sclerotinia Initiative. More information on this initiative is
available at:
http://www.whitemoldresearch.com
The research study was published recently in the journal Plant Disease, and is
available online at:
http://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/interp/10.1094/PDIS-92-6-0917
ARS is a scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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