Sequencing and Genome Assembly of Cultivated Alfalfa at the Diploid Level (CADL) Medicago sativa

The cultivated alfalfa is an autotetraploid (2n=4x=32) crop and it is recognized as one of the most important forage crops worldwide. The complex tetrasomic inheritance makes the cultivated alfalfa difficult to work with at a genetic level, positioning CADL (Cultivated Alfalfa at the Diploid Level) as an alternative for genetic and genomic studies. The CADL genome was assembled from PacBio reads, with a 100x coverage, using the Falcon assembler and polished with Quiver. The genome assembly quality as well as preliminary comparative genomic data against the tetraploid Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) assembly, 180x coverage obtained from PacBio and Illumina reads (long and short insert size libraries), is presented here.