Polyploidy plays a crucial role in plant evolution. Brassica napus (2n = 38, AACC), the most important oil crop in the Brassica genus, is an allotetraploid that originated through natural doubling of chromosomes after the hybridization of its progenitor species, B. rapa (2n = 20, AA) and B. oleracea (2n = 18, CC). A better understanding of the evolutionary relationship between B. napus and B. r...

Release of transgenic insect-resistant crops creates the potential not only for the insect pest to evolve resistance but for the escape of transgenes that may confer novel or enhanced fitness-related traits through hybridization with their wild relatives. The differential response of diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) populations in eastern and western Canada to Bt-producing (GT) Brassica n...

Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) is an important alternate oilseed crop in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. No information on plant density for rapeseed is available in this region. Therefore a study was initiated to investigate the effects of spacings between rows and spacings within rows on the yield and agronomic characteristics of two genotypes of spring rapeseed (Tower and Lirawell) in Erzurum, easte...

Stable expression of a transgene may lead to increased fitness for wild plants after acquiring the transgene via crop-weed hybridization. Here, we investigate the stability of Bt toxin content in wild Brassica rapa acquiring the Bt gene from Bt Brassica napus. The Bt toxin content in nine Bt-expressing B. napus lines was 0.80-1.70 micro g/g leaf tissue throughout the growing season. These nine ...

Meiotic crossovers (COs) are essential for proper chromosome segregation and the reshuffling of alleles during meiosis. In WT plants, the number of COs is usually small, which limits the genetic variation that can be captured by plant breeding programs. Part of this limitation is imposed by proteins like FANCM, the inactivation of which results in a 3-fold increase in COs in Arabidopsis thalian...

DNA methylation is an important regulatory mechanism for gene expression that involved in the biological processes of development and differentiation in plants. To investigate the association of DNA methylation with heterosis in Brassica, a set of intraspecific hybrids in Brassica rapa and B. napus and interspecific hybrids between B. rapa and B. napus, together with parental lines, were used t...

s. Therefore, more information is necessary concerning cauliflower transplant age. CHINESE CABBAGE [Brassica rapa L. SSP. PEKINENSIS (LOUR.)]. Kratky et al. (1982) in Hawaii found no significant differences in time to maturity, individual head weight, and total yield from Chinese cabbage transplants of 3, 4, 5, and 6 weeks of age. RAPE (Brassica napus ssp. OLEIFERA VAR. NAPUS). In a 3-year stud...

Yellow-seed (i.e., yellow seed coat) is one of the most important agronomic traits of Brassica plants, which is correlated with seed oil and meal qualities. Previous studies on the Brassicaceae, including Arabidopsis and Brassica species, proposed that the seed-color trait is correlative to flavonoid and lignin biosynthesis, at the molecular level. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the oxidative polymer...

The Resistance to Powdery Mildew 8 (RPW8) locus confers broad-spectrum resistance to powdery mildew in Arabidopsis thaliana. There are four Homologous to RPW8s (BrHRs) in Brassica rapa and three in Brassica oleracea (BoHRs). Brassica napus (Bn) is derived from diploidization of a hybrid between B. rapa and B. oleracea, thus should have seven homologs of RPW8 (BnHRs). It is unclear whether these...

BRASSICA GENOME RESEARCH TOPIC Brassica species include important crops and provide unique materials for the study of genome evolution. These crops include six important vegetables and oilseed crops, which have been classically described by “U’s triangle’. The three diploid species B. rapa (A genome), B. nigra (B genome), and B. oleracea (C genome) have formed the amphidiploid species B. juncea...