Biotechnology in Breeding on Industrial Oil Crops – The Present Status and Future Prospects

Abstract

With increasing “overproduction” of food supplies it is frequently emphasized now that agricultural production of industrial “non‐food” raw materials should be intensified. Many adapted crop plants are already available for producing various kinds of natural materials. Particularly the large group of oil‐crops could be used even more widely for providing vegetable oils for numerous technical purposes. The example of rape‐seed (Brassica napus) clearly demonstrates that the composition of vegetable oil can be completely reconstructed according to the wishes of manufactures or consumers, even by conventional breeding methods. Further, more rapid and efficient breeding is expected by application of modern “biotechnology”, i.e. tissue‐ and cell‐culture techniques as well as “genetic engineering”. Where variation for a character like oil‐quality is limited within a crop plant, a wide range of alien wild species is available for broadening genetic variation of plants like rapeseed, sunflower (Helianthus annuus) or linseed (flax, Linum usitatissimum). Exploration of such “new” genetic variation is nowadays facilitated by in vitro embryo culture or cell (protoplast)‐fusion techniques. Such biotechniques can help to overcome crossing barriers between species as shown e.g. in the genus Brassica. But also in other important oilcrops like linseed or sunflower, biotechniques can now be applied profitably. For example, it has been demonstrated that protoplasts can be regenerated in Linum, so that asexual interspecific hybrids can principally be produced in that way. Alie species of sunflower and linseed show a wide range of variation regarding agronomically important characters, particularly of oil composition and disease resistance. This alien genetic variation can be used for breeding new disease resistant oil‐crop cultivars. Other techniques, like the “haploidy‐method” can help to accelerate a breding programme, ultimately leading to a homozygous line or cultivar. For example, haploids are routinely induced in linseed and various Brassica crops. Finally, genetic engineering will allow in the future, to isolate qualitatively highly effective genes from any organism and transfer it functionally into adapted high‐yielding crop plants. therewith, the agronomic and economic value of such crops may be more efficiently and rapidly increased than until now.

A novel method for high-frequency transgenic shoot regeneration viaAgrobacterium tumefaciensin flax (Linum usitatissimumL.)

“…Flax has a good regeneration system (Gamborg and Shyluk 1976;Mathews and Narayanaswamy 1976). Flax regenerates more easily from hypocotyl explants in vitro (Dong and McHughen 1993;Friedt 1990;Gamborg and Shyluk 1976;Millam et al 1992) and the medium containing 1 mg l -1 BAP and 0.02 mg l -1 NAA have been successfully used for shoot regeneration (Dong and McHughen 1993;Jordan and Mc Hughen 1988;Yildiz and Özgen 2004). However, the production of transformed flax plants from transformed cells was very low (Dong and McHughen 1993;Beranova et al 2008).…”

Explant position effect on gene transformation to flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) via Agrobacterium tumefaciens

“…Flax regenerates easily from hypocotyl segments under in vitro conditions (11,12,13,14,15). However, the recovery of transgenic flax plants (13,16).…”

Resynthesized Brassica napus L.: A review of its potential in breeding and genetic analysis

“…To grow rapeseed crops for meeting the industrial need is further urged in some parts of the world because of the surplus supply of edible rapeseed oil. Industrial utilization of rapeseed oil requires a specific fatty acid composition, e.g.. a high oleic acid content (FICK 1983;FRIEDT 1988). This type of fatty acid composition is also of interest as a cooking oil.…”