Identification of Drought Resistant Standards for Transcriptomic Study of Common Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon).

Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) is a widely used turf in subtropical and tropical areas worldwide because of its superior drought resistance. One of the major breeding goals in bermudagrass is even better drought resistance, but the exact mechanisms behind its resistance are not fully understood. A highly effective method that is used to study drought resistance is transcriptomics, measuring the abundance of all the mRNAs in a cell at a specific time point, but the work that has been done has compared C. dactylon to C. dactylon x transvaalensis or C. dactylon x transvaalensis with itself. The goal of this study is identify C. dactylon genotypes that can be used as drought resistant and drought susceptible standards for transcriptomic analysis of drought resistance.