Molecular breeding of transgenic perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) with altered fructan biosynthesis through the expression of fructosyltransferases

Abstract

Perennial ryegrass is the most important forage grass used in temperate agriculture. Transgenic perennial ryegrass events with altered fructan biosynthesis have the potential not only to increase animal production by improving digestibility of the grasses, but also to increase pasture intake by the animal due to lower neutral detergent fibre (NDF) concentrations. Transgenic perennial ryegrass plants were shown to have increased (P < 0.05) in fructan concentrations of leaf blades in transgenic T0 events and have thus an increase in water-soluble carbohydrate and in vivo dry matter digestibility concentrations as well as a decrease in the NDF concentration within the plant in spring and summer. These changes in nutritive value have led to an increase in metabolisable energy of up to 1.7 MJ ME·kg DM−1 in selected T0 events compared to FLp418-20 during spring and summer, with no differences in autumn or winter. The field evaluation of these events and the further development of these events using molecular breeding technologies are described in this paper.