Identifying gene regulatory networks associated with response to water stress in Brachiaria nad developing genotype and phenotype ontologies for forage grass species

Brachiaria spp., also known as signalgrasses, are widely grown forage grasses in tropical regions, particularly in Central and South America and Africa. Because of Brachiaria's importance in sustaining livestock agriculture across these regions, there have been continued plant breeding programmes to develop both the nutritional properties and the environmental adaptations of these grasses in order to improve crop yields and animal productivity and, so, the economic situations of the regional farmers. Much of this crop improvement work has been pioneered by CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture; http://ciat.cgiar.org/) based in Colombia but working regionally with commercial partners and farmers across continents. At Aberystwyth University we also have active interests in research and plant breeding, but for the temperate forage grasses, the ryegrasses. While the crop species ranges for Brachiaria and ryegrass are different, many of the fundamental challenges remain the same - adaptation to stress, quality and yield, efficient use of inputs and genetic improvement. One aspect of abiotic stress that is relevant to both grasses is their response to water limitation and within this programme we are looking at changes in gene expression that occur in Brachiaria at the onset of drought. This parallels work within the ryegrasses and will enable us to explore similarities and differences between the tropical and temperate grasses. Another aspect of our research is the development of plant phenotyping technologies for developing precise characterisations of plant architectures under different conditions. Aberystwyth University is the home of the UK National Plant Phenomics Centre and we are interested in extending our work on the phenotypic characterisation of ryegrasses to include Brachiaria. This will allow us to assess and discuss the application of advanced plant phenotyping with our partners and collaborators in CIAT.