Poster

         Crops and Wild Relatives

Analysis of Rare Vigna Species: Vigna kirkii and Vigna stenophylla

Presenting Author
Kaycie Melville
Description
Vigna Savi consists of more than 40 wild species and several domesticated plants of high nutritional value. With resilience to a variety of abiotic stressors (i.e., flooding, drought, infection, etc.), wild species represent a reservoir of potentially useful traits that could be used to improve crops. Recent phylogenetic analyses of cpDNA and ribosomal DNA (matK and ITS, respectively) suggest a unique lineage comprising V. kirkii and V. stenophylla, two relatively unknown wild species that may represent a possible new subgenus. Interestingly, chloroplast and nuclear phylogenies provide differing hypotheses of Vigna stenophylla and Vigna kirkii relations. However, due to these species’ rarity, little to no information is known about these species. Through this research, we seek to analyze their genomes via flow cytometry to estimate genome size and ploidy to see if they are possibly polyploids or hybrids with other species. To  begin this analysis, we grew plants from seed for each species. Through the growth period alone, we have discovered more information about V. stenophylla and V. kirkii life history. These species differ from most other Vigna s.s. species in aspects of structure and growth patterns: V. stenophylla grows in a bushy manner with long, thin leaves and a smooth stem and is far slower growing than V. kirkii, which vines and has wide leaves, a thick layer of hairs on the stem, and a quick germination period. From our observations, there are a myriad of possibly favorable traits that could be used in currently domesticated crops. Of these are V. stenophylla’s bushy growth pattern and both V. stenophylla and V. kirkii’s quick recovery from viral infections—a period as short as a couple of days with a quick reaction to shedding leaves and producing shoots and branching. In addition to growth observations, we explore propagation via tissue culture in the hopes of establishing a protocol for production to increase in plant yield for further analysis of species growth patterns and tendencies, and plant reproduction, and to gain more information of flower characteristics and seed production.