Quantitative Genetic Analysis of Biomass Traits in Prairie Cordgrass.

Prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata) is viewed as a promising new bioenergy crop on wet and saline soils that are not suitable for conventional crops and other dedicated bioenergy crops in the northern Great Plains and Midwest. The objective of this research was to determine narrow-sense heritability estimates for biomass, disease resistance, insect resistance, and other agronomic traits in a natural population of prairie cordgrass from southeastern South Dakota. Single-row transplanted plots were established from seedlings grown from seed of 65 plants selected at random from 800 plants established from bulk seed collected from the original population. Significant differences were found among half-sib families for biomass, biomass yield components, and pest resistance. Heritability estimates were moderate for biomass and insect resistance and high for disease resistance. Results indicated  rapid progress from among family selection for sustainable biomass-related traits.