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Silphium integrifolium (Asteraceae) has been identified as a candidate for domestication as a perennial oilseed crop and is assumed to have sporophytic self-incompatibility system-the genetic basis of which is not well understood in the Asteraceae. To address this gap, we sought to map the genomic location of the self-recognition locus (S-locus) in this species. We used a biparental population and genotyping-by-sequencing to create the first genetic linkage map for this species, which contained 198 SNP markers and resolved into the correct number of linkage groups. Then we developed a novel crossing scheme and set of analysis methods in order to infer S-locus genotypes for a subset of these individuals, allowing us to map the trait. Finally, we evaluated potential genes of interest using synteny analysis with the annual sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa) genomes. Our results confirm that S. integrifolium does indeed have a sporophytic self-incompatibility system. Our method is effective and efficient, allowed us to map the S. integrifolium S-locus using fewer resources than existing methods, and could be readily applied to other species.

International audience; De novo domestication has received recent attention because of the potential to produce new crop species with additional agroecosystem functions and useful products for climate-resilient agricultural systems of the future. However, there are often traits in wild species that make them difficult to domesticate. One key domestication trait selected by early farmers and modern plant breeders in many crops is the ability to self-pollinate. Benefits include higher seed set and more reliable seed production, as well as more efficient selection during breeding because it allows for unmasking of recessive traits and enforcement of favorable gene interactions. Similarly, interspecific hybridization has been used to add to the genetic diversity of many crop species. We evaluated self-pollination and interspecific hybridization in Silphium integrifolium and S. perfoliatum to learn the extent of possible gene flow between the species and its usefulness in cultivar development and the potential for fixation of favorable domestication genes by self-pollination. Our results indicate that Silphium interspecific hybrids can be easily developed, potentially facilitating movement of otherwise invariable traits from one species to another. Further, we showed, for the first time, that self-pollination is also possible in both species and their interspecific hybrids, but the rate varies among genotypes. This has profound implications in optimizing plant breeding methods for the study and improvement of these species and adds more evidence to our understanding of mating systems in Asteraceae, an underutilized family of plants with great potential for additional domesticated species.

Organic dormancy, the inability to germinate under favorable conditions, is a common problem in many crop species and their wild relatives, leading to more variable emergence, plant density, and growth rates, thus increasing costs, and lowering yield. To overcome these problems, several different methods have been developed for various crop and model plants. However, in the emerging crop being bred from wild and semi-domesticated Silphium, no such method has been established thus far. The objective of this study was to identify a dormancy-breaking assay to increase the seed germination rate. Seeds of three different Silphium integrifolium Michx. genotypes were treated with five chemical and one cold treatment, and dried before or after the treatment at 27 °C or 40 °C. Untreated, dried seeds were taken as control. Seeds soaked for 24 h in a ethephon/potassium nitrate solution followed by a 72 h drying step at 40 °C showed an increase of germination to up to 90 ± 2% compared to control seeds (3 ± 0% and 5 ± 1%). We identified the minimum time frame of cold stratification needed to enhance seed germination in Silphium, and found that cold stratification was nearly as good as the chemical treatment. Our results provide two alternate ways to treat S. integrifolium seeds for breaking organic dormancy, which will help to facilitate future research in the Silphium domestication community. The fact that our optimal treatments were similar to protocols developed for sunflower suggests that these methods may also be applicable to many related economically important Asteraceae species.

Humanity depends on fewer than a dozen of the approximately 300,000 species of flowering plants for 80% of its caloric intake. And we capitalize on only a fraction of the genetic diversity that resides within each of these species. This is not enough to support our food system in the future. Food availability must double in the next 25 years to keep pace with population and income growth around the world. Already, food-production systems are precarious in the face of intensifying demand, climate change, soil degradation and water and land shortages. Farmers have saved the seeds of hundreds of crop species and hundreds of thousands of ‘primitive’ varieties (local domesticates called landraces), as well as the wild relatives of crop species and modern varieties no longer in use. These are stored in more than 1,700 gene banks worldwide. Maintaining the 11 international gene-bank collections alone costs about US$18 million a year.