Cassava Breeding and Cultivation Challenges in Thailand: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives.

Cassava ( Crantz) was introduced to Southeast Asia in the 16th-17th centuries and has since flourished as an industrial crop. Since the 1980s, Thailand has emerged as the leading producer and exporter of cassava products. This growth coincided with the initiation of cassava breeding programs in collaboration with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), focusing on root yield and starch production.

Genome-wide association mapping and genomic prediction of yield-related traits and starch pasting properties in cassava.

GWAS identified eight yield-related, peak starch type of waxy and wild-type starch and 21 starch pasting property-related traits (QTLs). Prediction ability of eight GS models resulted in low to high predictability, depending on trait, heritability, and genetic architecture. Cassava is both a food and an industrial crop in Africa, South America, and Asia, but knowledge of the genes that control yield and starch pasting properties remains limited.

Transcriptome analysis of oil palm inflorescences revealed candidate genes for an auxin signaling pathway involved in parthenocarpy.

Oil palm parthenocarpic fruits, which are produced without fertilization, can be targeted to increase oil content because the majority of the fruit is occupied by mesocarp, the part in which palm oil is stored. Consequently, gaining an understanding of the parthenocarpic mechanism would be instrumental for producing parthenocarpic oil palm. This study aims to determine effects of auxin treatment and analyze differentially expressed genes in oil palm pistils at the pollination/anthesis stage, using an RNA sequencing (RNA seq) approach.

Toward the development of highly homozygous diploid potato lines using the self-compatibility controlling Sli gene.

Cultivated diploid potatoes (2n = 2x = 24) are self-incompatible, but can be altered to become self-compatible using the Sli gene. Previously, a diploid clone 97H32-6 was selfed up to S3 using the Sli gene. To explore the usefulness of the Sli gene for the production of highly homozygous diploid potatoes, 2 S4 families from the above 97H32-6 derived S3 lines (inbred series A) and 3 S5 families by continuous selfings from a different F1 (= S0) plant (inbred series B) were developed.