Poster: Education

Abs # 5: II. "Modern Techniques in Plant Biotechnology" The Generation of Agrobacterium-mediated transformants in perennial rye grass and tall fescue for production of environmentally responsible grasses by crop improvement: A project based approach.

Presenter:	Lickwar, Colin , clic8991@postoffice.uri.edu
Authors	Lickwar, Colin  (B)   Longo, Chip  (A) (C)  Deragon, Derek  (B)   Pizza, Christopher  (B)   Martin, Delia  (B)   Cook, Daniel  (B)   Hu, Qian  (A)   Nelson-Vasilchik, Kim  (A)   Luo, Hong  (A)   Kausch, Albert P (A) (C)
Affiliations:	(A): HybriGene Inc. (B): University of Rhode Island (C): life edu.org

The total land area in the U.S. devoted to turfgrasses is about 40 million acres, of which 75% is in home lawns and golf courses. Citizens of the U.S. spend more than $30 billion annually on turfgrasses. However, the environmental impact of grasses, from pesticide, fungicide, fertilizer and water usage is approximately 18 times that of agricultural lands. The average home lawn uses 10,000 gallons of water per summer. Genetic engineering approaches can now be applied to grasses that offer the possibility for introducing new genes for cultivar development that can reduce environmental impact. Such genes can confer traits such as, drought and stress tolerance that will reduce water usage, insect and pest resistance that will cut pesticide applications, as well as a long list of others. HybriGene Inc., in collaboration with the University of Rhode Island, is developing and introducing new traits into grasses that will lessen environmental inputs. Part of that program is devoted to the investigation of methods for containment of engineered traits to prevent their transfer to other grasses. Reliable methods have been developed for the introduction of trait genes into various grasses including creeping and colonial bentgrasses, bluegrass, and Poa aanua, but transformation progress with perennial ryegrass and tall fescue has lagged behind. This project-based study has examined the growth and cell culture conditions necessary for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of these important commercial species. Cell culture conditions were established for the efficient production of embryogenic cell cultures that were co-incubated with Agrobacterium vectors containing constructs to test herbicide resistance and the induction of a sterility trait for control of transgene escape.