AsianScientist (Nov. 19, 2013) – University of Queensland scientists have identified a sorghum gene variant that could lead to development of more digestible feedstock for farm animals and much-improved nutrition for some of the world’s poorest nations.
Known around the world for its drought-tolerance and florid heads of grain at harvest time, a more digestible sorghum would allow better uptake of vital nutrients.
A team led by the University of Queensland (UQ) plant scientist Professor Ian Godwin and colleagues from the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Science (QAAFI) has shown that selecting for a specific sorghum gene could mean the grain from these hardy plants will be much easier to digest.
“Sorghum is drought tolerant and can grow in regions otherwise unfit for other cereals, but unfortunately suffers from lower digestibility compared with other cereals,” Godwin said. “Most importantly, while the gene identified appears to improve digestibility, the gene’s presence does not appear to diminish a sorghum plant’s growth or yield.”
Queensland Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry John McVeigh said the research was a major boost for Queensland, with sorghum already contributing an estimated AUD$600 million to the rural economy annually. For people living on marginalized farmland and dependent on sorghum as a fodder or food crop, these findings could prove to be life saving, while also maximizing water and land-use efficiency.
“Any improvement to the digestibility of sorghum will add value to the grain and have a knock-on effect for the myriad of rural producers who use sorghum as a feedstock,” Mr. McVeigh said. “We have a goal to double the value of our food production by 2040 and this is another step in the right direction towards fulfilling that commitment and making Queensland a world leader in food and fiber production,” he said.
While the gene variant is at low frequency in most sorghum populations, the team showed that the variant is present in elite germplasm arising from their sorghum pre-breeding program. Preliminary studies done using a lab system that mimics monogastric digestion demonstrated the variant gene leads to higher activity of an enzyme involved in starch biosynthesis in the developing grain.
The next step in the research will be to grow significant quantities of the selected sorghum line to test its digestibility, initially, in pigs and poultry.
The article can be found at: Godwin I et al. (2013) Allelic variation at a single gene increases food value in a drought-tolerant staple cereal.
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Source: The University of Queensland.
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