16 - Applied oilseed rape marker technology and genomics

Abstract

Oilseed rape (OSR) (Brassica napus L.) is the world’s second oilseed crop. Breeding of OSR and sustained growth over the last three decades has been largely driven by biotechnology applications including doubled haploid (DH) and molecular marker technologies and has been resulting in the transition from line (OP) to hybrid varieties in the market. This review is discussing the role of interspecific hybridization in combination with the development of molecular marker technology, marker-assisted selection and genomics approaches for broadening the narrow genetic diversity of elite B. napus breeding material to address specific OSR breeding goals, i.e. oil yield, seed quality and disease resistance. New high-throughput technologies for B. napus genotyping, whole-genome analyses and comparative mapping approaches have been recently established and are nowadays enabling the screening of large collections of germplasm for identification of novel alleles from diverse sources. These technologies are opening up the door to speed up the genetic dissection of complex traits and increase the efficiency of knowledge-based breeding of OSR in the near future.