Selection for Greater β‐Glucan Content in Oat Grain

Abstract

Oat (Avena sativa L.) β‐glucan lowers serum cholesterol in humans. Development of oat cultivars with greater groat (caryopsis) β‐glucan content would increase the nutritional and economic value of the crop. The objectives of this experiment were to evaluate the response to phenotypic selection among individual S0 plants for greater groat β‐glucan content in two genetically broad‐based populations; to compare selected experimental lines to standard check cultivars; and to estimate genetic variances and heritabilities and to test for nonadditive genetic variance for β‐glucan content. We measured groat β‐glucan contents of check cultivars and parental lines and random S0:1 lines from initial and selected generations of each population grown in field experiments in 1996 and 1997 at two Iowa locations. Mean β‐glucan content increased from 53.9 to 59.9 g kg−1 in one population, and from 63.5 to 66.0 g kg−1 in the other, following selection. Genetic variance of β‐glucan content decreased by 9 to 22% following selection, but heritability for β‐glucan content did not change significantly. Heritability estimates ranged from 0.80 to 0.85 on a line mean basis. Additive variance was the only substantial component of genetic variance. Some experimental lines had significantly greater β‐glucan content than the best check cultivars and lines. Phenotypic selection for greater groat β‐glucan content will be effective for developing cultivars with elevated β‐glucan contents.

Júpiter-INIA: A new oat variety with improved β-glucan and protein contents

“…The stable effect of the genotype across all environments and years, suggests a strong genetic effect on protein and β-glucan contents. Similar results have been obtained in other studies for β-glucan (Kianian et al, 2000;Cervantes-Martinez et al, 2001;Redaelli et al, 2013), and protein (De Koeyer et al, 2004) contents. The effect of environment over β-glucan content is unclear.…”

Heterosis and genetic parameters for grain quality in oat segregating populations

“…Considering vigor loss due to inbreeding depression in F 2 , a higher loss (17 %) was observed for population 2 than for population 1 (10 %) suggesting the presence of non-additive interactions. According to previous reports, the β-glucan content in oat grains appears to be controlled by genes with predominant additive effects (Cervantes- Martinez et al, 2001). In barley, a diploid species, it was suggested that only the gene HvCslF6 has high influence on the synthesis of β-glucans in the grains (Taketa et al, 2012).…”

ß-Glucan contents of groats of different oat cultivars in official variety, in organic cultivation, and in nitrogen fertilization trials in Finland

“…It has been widely reported that the effect of genotype on β-glucan content of oats is significant (Lim et al 1992, Saastamoinen et al 1992a, b, Doehlert et al 2001 and that the β-glucan content of cultivated oats (Avena sativa L.) is a quantitatively inherited trait influenced by several genes (Baur and Geisler 1996, Kianian et al 2000, Cervantes-Martinez et al 2001. Extremely high β-glucan contents (up to 11.3%) have been found in wild oat species (Welch et al 2000).…”