IDENTIFICATION OF NOVEL STARCH TRAITS IN SORGHUM {SORGHUM BICOLOR L)i A REVERSE GENETICS APPROACH

摘要

In Australia, sorghum is the 3rd most important cereal grain, after wheat and barley, and is well suited to our hot and dry climate. Grain sorghum plays a key role in providing feed grains to the beef, dairy, pig and poultry industries, and is used inpet foods. It is a good rotation crop that tolerates heat and moisture stress, and performs better than maize on soils with marginal potassium levels, (www.dpi.qld.gov.au) The use of ionising radiation such as x-rays and gamma radiation to induce variation in plants is an established technique and has been used for over 70 years by plant breeders for crop improvement. (Ahloowalia and Maluszynski, 2001). In this study, sorghum seed has been gamma irradiated to induce random mutation across the genome and DNA sequencing has been used to detect genetic variability in starch genes known to be important in the genetic control of grain quality in cereals.