Abstract
SummaryAlfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is one of the most important forage crops worldwide. As a perennial, alfalfa is cut several times each year. Farmers face a dilemma: if cut earlier, forage nutritive value is much higher but regrowth is affected and the longevity of the stand is severely compromised. On the other hand, if alfalfa is cut later at full flower, stands persist longer and more biomass may be harvested, but the nutritive value diminishes. Alfalfa is a strict long‐day plant. We reasoned that by manipulating the response to photoperiod, we could delay flowering to improve forage quality and widen each harvesting window, facilitating management. With this aim, we functionally characterized the FLOWERING LOCUS T family of genes, represented by five members: MsFTa1, MsFTa2, MsFTb1, MsFTb2 and MsFTc. The expression of MsFTa1 correlated with photoperiodic flowering and its down‐regulation led to severe delayed flowering. Altogether, with late flowering, low expression of MsFTa1 led to changes in plant architecture resulting in increased leaf to stem biomass ratios and forage digestibility. By manipulating photoperiodic flowering, we were able to improve the quality of alfalfa forage and management, which may allow farmers to cut alfalfa of high nutritive value without compromising stand persistence.
Highlights
Alfalfa, Medicago sativa L, is regarded as the most important forage crop in the world (Putnam et al, 2001) with a global hay market in 2017 of 8.3 million metric tons (ITC, 2018)
The expression of MsFTa1 correlated with photoperiodic flowering and its downregulation led to severe delayed flowering
By manipulating photoperiodic flowering we were able to improve the quality of alfalfa forage and management, which may allow farmers to cut alfalfa of high nutritive value without compromising stand persistence
Summary
Medicago sativa L, is regarded as the most important forage crop in the world (Putnam et al, 2001) with a global hay market in 2017 of 8.3 million metric tons (ITC, 2018). Good quality fodder is characterised by high nutrient levels, a superior energy intake by the animal, elevated protein content (Allen, 1996; Ball et al, 2001) and low amount of non-digestible components such as cellulose or lignin (Hatfield et al, 1994; Hatfield et al, 1999). Both yield and quality are the main variables aimed for improvement in forage crops. In other cases like lettuce (Lactuca Sativa) or alfalfa itself, research has been performed to develop strategies that favor a late transition to reproductive stages, since the process of flowering, as mentioned earlier, has a negative impact on biomass quality (Aung et al, 2015; Chen et al, 2017; Gao et al, 2016; Jung et al, 2016)
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