Research Projects

Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) is grown as rainfed crop in India and its productivity depends on rain fall distribution, marred by various abiotic stresses. In order to achieve self-sufficiency in edible oils’ demand of country, increasing soybean production under harsh environments is inevitable. Root architecture traits are important factors for exploration of nutrients and water from different soil profiles, and thereby determinants of yield performance under resource limiting harsh environments. However, root architecture traits are hidden below ground and often breeding for these traits is difficult. Deeper rooting help to extract moisture and nutrient from deeper layers of soil during prolonged exposure of dry spell, while soil surface rooting helps under intermittent stress conditions of short dry spells, by extracting water and nutrients covering larger soil surface area, thereby buffering yield losses. Identification and characterization of genes for various root architecture traits will facilitate breeding of below ground traits. Two genes, OsDRO1 (Deeper Rooting1) and OsSOR1 (Soil Surface Rooting1), have been characterized for root development in rice (Uga et al., 2013; Hanazawa et al 2013). During evolution, duplicated genes gained new functions or sub-functions, therefore characterization of OsSOR1 homologs in soybean will create new and useful information. Using comparative genomics, we have identified six homologs of OsDRO1 and 17 homologs of OsSOR1 in soybean genome (GmSOR). Using database searches, we have generated some useful information on these genes indicating involvement of some of these genes in root architecture traits. However, to elucidate the role of each gene in root architecture trait development, wet lab studies and phenotypic associations are to be performed for their functional validation. To identify functional alleles and haplotypes of these genes for practical breeding purpose, we need to explore soybean germplasm. So, in this project, a large set of soybean germplasm will be phenotyped for root architecture traits at different growth stages to identify extreme trait genotypes (Primary root, lateral roots and root angle), comparative real time PCR studies demonstrating differential expression will provide first level of information on their functionality, gene editing will provide functional validation of these genes, and sequencing of genic and promotor regions of these differentially expressed genes in extreme trait germplasm will generate information on associated functional alleles and haplotypes for breeding purpose. Further, breeder friendly PCR based and allele discrimination based molecular markers will be developed to facilitate molecular designing of root architecture traits.