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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Crop and Product Physiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1481282

Adaptation to reductions in chilling availability using variation in PLANT HOMOLOGOUS TO PARAFIBROMIN in Brassica napus

Provisionally accepted
Steven Penfield Steven Penfield *Samuel Warner Samuel Warner Carmel M. O'Neill Carmel M. O'Neill Rebecca Doherty Rebecca Doherty Rachel Wells Rachel Wells
  • John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Winter annual crops are sown in late summer or autumn and require chilling to promote flowering the following spring. Floral initiation begins in autumn and winter and in winter oilseed rape (OSR) continued chilling during flower development is necessary for high yield potential. This can be a problem in areas where chilling is not guaranteed, or as a result of changing climates. Here we used chilling disruption and low chilling to identify loci with the potential to increase chilling efficiency in winter OSR. We report that time to flowering and yield potential under low chill conditions is affected by variation at the PLANT HOMOLOGOUS TO PARAFIBROMIN gene, a component of the plant PAF1c complex. We show that increases in winter chilling given to developing flowers can improve seed yields and that loss of function of BnaPHP.A05 leads to early flowering in B. rapa and B. napus and an increase in seed set where chilling is limited. Because PHP is known to specifically target the FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) gene in Arabidopsis we propose that variation at PHP is useful for breeding modifications to chilling responses in polyploid crops with multiple copies of the FLC gene.

    Keywords: Chilling, vernalization, Brassica, temperature, flowering, oilseed rape, Climate Change

    Received: 15 Aug 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Penfield, Warner, O'Neill, Doherty and Wells. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Steven Penfield, John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.