Award details

Modifying forage grasses to enhance fructan accumulation for improved feed quality

Reference	D12046
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Andrew Cairns
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Phillip Morris, Professor Michael Theodorou
Institution	Inst of Grassland and Environmental Res
Department	Cell Biology Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	170,976
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/07/2000
End date	01/07/2003
Duration	36 months

Abstract

Ryegrass has evolved to accumulate high concentrations of storage carbohydrate as fructan. The endogenous fructanhydrolases of grasses do not catabolise bacterial fructan (BF), though BF is fermented by the rumen microflora. Fermentable carbohydrate (FC) content of forage will be increased by the constitutive expression of the SacB gene (from Bacillus subtilis, coding for the enzyme of BF synthesis) in the vacuole of ryegrass cells. In the absence of catabolism, BF will accumulate. We predict increases in forage FC of up to 36 percent of dry matter for a less than 1 percent reduction in carbon export from leaves. This increase in FC should result in a large increase in nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and live weight gain by grazing animals.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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