Cleistogamy of oilseed rape, a way to prevent cross‐fertilization between adjacent fields

Abstract

At the field scale, pollen flow between adjacent fields limits the potential of coexistence of different farming production systems, especially for allogamous crops like oilseed rape whose pollen is disseminated by insects or wind. In this article, we examine the efficiency of cleistogamy in an oilseed rape line which showed between 90% and 99% of flowers closed at flowering, in limiting deposition of allo-pollen. Five trials were established, consisting of two adjacent blocks, the one sown with the cleistogamous low-erucic acid line and the other with a classically flowering high-erucic acid line, used as source of contaminating pollen, itself artificially contaminated with a 1% mix of cleistogamous plants. Analyses showed that cross-fertilization rates of cleistogamous plants, estimated through erucic acid contents of seeds collected from them, were lower than those generally observed in oilseed rape: it averaged 10.1% on isolated plants within the erucic blocks, reached to the maximum 14% immediately adjacent to the erucic block, then decreased exponentially at higher distances. Cleistogamy appeared therefore as one imperfect means of gene biocontainment.

Cleistogamy and phylogenetic position ofViola uliginosa(Violaceae) re-examined

“…The genetic basis of cleistogamy is still poorly understood although it has attracted considerable attention in recent years because CL genotypes of important crops, such as rice, barley, rape and soya (Turuspekov et al ., ; Maeng et al ., ; Yoshida et al ., ; Leflon et al ., , ; Wang et al ., ) or important medicinal plants, such as Catharanthus roseus (L.) G.Don (Kulkarni & Baskaran, ), could maintain genetic purity and seed production independent of pollinators by cleistogamy. Less is known about the genes involved in cleistogamy in violets.…”

Short communication. Estimation of cross-fertilization rate in saff lower (Carthamus tinctorius L.)

“…Since such traits are expressed at the F 1 seed level, they can be used as biochemical markers in studies aimed at estimating outcrossing rates. For example, erucic acid content has been extensively used as a biochemical marker for estimating outcrossing rates between lines with contrasting levels of this fatty acid in rapeseed (Rakow & Woods, 1987;Cullen et al, 2008;Leflon et al, 2011). The objective of this research was Cross-fertilization rate in safflower zation was calculated as the percentage of low oleic acid seeds (< 36%) produced on high-oleic CR-6 plants.…”