Transcriptomics Study in Tall Fescue for Summer Dormancy

Summer dormancy is an important drought adaptation trait of cool season perennial grasses in the Mediterranean climates to survive under harsh summer conditions. In the southern Great Plains, the persistence and productivity of cool season perennial grasses is significantly affected by hot and dry summer. Thus understanding and utilization of summer dormancy mechanism in tall fescue would help in developing suitable cultivars for the region. RNA-seq study has been conducted among one continental (R43-64) and two summer dormant (Agrafa 103-2 and GK45115-11) tall fescue genotypes to identify genetic mechanism involved in summer dormancy. All the genotypes were subjected under both summer dormant and optimum growing condition following two replications. Sample of leaves, crowns and roots were collected for RNA-Seq at three different time point of induction, transition and dormancy condition. De novo assembly was performed which assembled total of 710125152bp sequence assembly. In the assembly, 1,031,513 RTs were identified in 583,736 contigs. Average contigs size of the assembly was 688.43 with the N50 value of 988. Differential transcriptional response was encountered among the genotypes, samples as well as the time points. This study will lead to identify genes or transcript involved in inducing and implementing summer dormancy in tall fescue which will eventually help understanding dormancy mechanism as well as assisting the breeding efforts for integrating dormancy in tall fescue as a desired trait.