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. 2022 Jan 4:12:801145.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.801145. eCollection 2021.

Seasonal Differences in Structural and Genetic Control of Digestibility in Perennial Ryegrass

Vincent Colas  1 , Philippe Barre  1 , Frederik van Parijs  2 , Lukas Wolters  3 , Yannick Quitté  4 , Tom Ruttink  2 , Isabel Roldán-Ruiz  2   5 , Abraham J Escobar Gutiérrez  1 , Hilde Muylle  2
Affiliations

Seasonal Differences in Structural and Genetic Control of Digestibility in Perennial Ryegrass

Vincent Colas et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

Perennial ryegrass is an important forage crop in dairy farming, either for grazing or haying purposes. To further optimise the forage use, this study focused on understanding forage digestibility in the two most important cuts of perennial ryegrass, the spring cut at heading and the autumn cut. In a highly diverse collection of 592 Lolium perenne genotypes, the organic matter digestibility (OMD) and underlying traits such as cell wall digestibility (NDFD) and cell wall components (cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin) were investigated for 2 years. A high genotype × season interaction was found for OMD and NDFD, indicating differences in genetic control of these forage quality traits in spring versus autumn. OMD could be explained by both the quantity of cell wall content (NDF) and the quality of the cell wall content (NDFD). The variability in NDFD in spring was mainly explained by differences in hemicellulose. A 1% increase of the hemicellulose content in the cell wall (HC.NDF) resulted in an increase of 0.81% of NDFD. In autumn, it was mainly explained by the lignin content in the cell wall (ADL.NDF). A 0.1% decrease of ADL.NDF resulted in an increase of 0.41% of NDFD. The seasonal traits were highly heritable and showed a higher variation in autumn versus spring, indicating the potential to select for forage quality in the autumn cut. In a candidate gene association mapping approach, in which 503 genes involved in cell wall biogenesis, plant architecture, and phytohormone biosynthesis and signalling, identified significant quantitative trait loci (QTLs) which could explain from 29 to 52% of the phenotypic variance in the forage quality traits OMD and NDFD, with small effects of each marker taken individually (ranging from 1 to 7%). No identical QTLs were identified between seasons, but within a season, some QTLs were in common between digestibility traits and cell wall composition traits confirming the importance of hemicellulose concentration for spring digestibility and lignin concentration in NDF for autumn digestibility.

Keywords: Lolium perenne L.; QTL; cell wall; digestibility; genotype; quality; season.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Organic matter digestibility (OMD) (A) and fibre digestibility (NDFD) (B) depending on heading date (HD.GDD0) in 2012 (light green circles) and 2013 (dark green diamonds). Black curves represent Eq. 6.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Organic matter digestibility of blades in spring against OMD of leaves in autumn in 2012 (A) and 2013 (B).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Relationship between OMD and (A) NDFD and (B) NDF. Light green circles indicate spring 2012 data, dark green diamonds indicate spring 2013 data, orange triangles indicate autumn 2012 data, and red squares indicate autumn 2013 data.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Relationship between NDF and NDFD in spring (A) and autumn (B). Light green circles indicate spring 2012 data, dark green diamonds indicate spring 2013, orange triangles indicate autumn 2012 and red squares indicate autumn 2013 data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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