Identifying the genetic control of sodium and chloride exclusion in grapevine rootstocks to breed for improved salt tolerance
Please note: this is a CSIRO-only seminar
Date
14 August 2018, Tuesday
Time and Venues
| Venues | Local Time | Time Zone |
| Armidale – B55-FG-R00-Small | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Brisbane St Lucia QBP – Level 3 South telepresence room (3.323) | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Canberra Black Mountain – Discovery Lecture Theatre; Crace – Bld44- Meeting Room 3 | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Narrabri Myall Vale – Conference Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Perth Floreat – B1b Boardroom | 10:30 am | AWST |
| Hobart Sandy Bay – River View Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Toowoomba – Meeting Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Waite (SA): B101-FG-R00-BoardWICWest (alternative is SmallWICWest) | 12:00 pm | ACST |
| Werribee (Melbourne) – Peacock Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
Speaker
Dr Jake Dunlevy, Postdoctoral Fellow, CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Waite Campus
Synopsis
Soil salinity is an important issue to the Australian wine industry, particularly in viticultural areas that face a diminishing and/or expensive supply of high quality irrigation water. When grown on saline soils traditional Vitis vinifera winegrape cultivars can suffer from decreased growth and yield, and reduced berry quality due to the high accumulation of chloride ions in particular, and to a lesser degree sodium ions. Fortunately, some rootstocks derived from North American Vitis species display enhanced ion exclusion traits, in which the translocation of sodium and chloride ions from the roots to the leaves and berries of the grafted scion is reduced, resulting in increased berry quality and salt tolerance. A current aim of CSIRO’s rootstock breeding program is to identify genes responsible for these key salt tolerance traits and to incorporate this knowledge into the breeding pipeline using marker-assisted selection. This presentation will focus on recent work that has led to the identification of a separate loci for sodium and chloride exclusion from different Vitis species and the characterisation of the major genes underpinning these traits.
About the speaker
Jake is a product of CSIRO. In 2005 he undertook an Honours project with Dr Paul Boss investigating the genes involved in the biosynthesis of grape berry flavour compounds important to wine aroma. After gaining a taste for the work, Jake returned to the Boss lab from 2007-2011, completing his PhD on the genetic control of methoxypyrazines, the herbaceous flavour characteristic of certain wine varieties. After some time spent travelling, in 2013 Jake returned to the grapevine team, joining Dr Mandy Walker’s lab as a Postdoctoral fellow working on the genetic control of salt tolerance traits in grapevine rootstocks. His work now also encompasses investigating phylloxera and nematodes resistance with Dr Harley Smith, with the aim of using marker-assisted-selection to breed improved grapevine rootstocks for the Australian viticulture industry.
