Outcrossing to related species
Oilseed rape has numerous wild relatives with which it can outcross in Europe, including wild radish, turnip rape, black, white and brown mustard.
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Do crossings between rape and its wild relatives produce any fertile progeny under natural conditions?
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Could resistance genes, which protect cultivated rape against pathogens, enter the gene pool of related wild species and confer on them a fitness advantage in the community, leading them to spread to field locations and neighbouring green spaces?
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Research projects: summary of resultsTopic: A case study in the Osnabrück area in Lower Saxony studied the ability of oilseed rape to grow wild and cross with closely related plants. Result: It was shown that gene flow takes place both between cultivated oilseed rape varieties and feral populations, and within the feral populations. Oilseed rape is found on the same sites as numerous potential crossing partners. For instance, natural hybridisations were found between oilseed rape and turnip rape. As well as the ‘normal’ diploid turnip rape, tetraploid turnip rape plants (with a genome twice the size) were found, which are also capable of growing wild. It was shown that oilseed rape and tetraploid turnip rape are able to cross to a significant extent, resulting in viable hybrids that are capable of reproducing. |
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Topic: Experiments were conducted under field conditions to find out whether oilseed rape outcrosses to different related species such as brown mustard, black mustard and wild radish. Results: Outcrossings were found only in brown mustard and some of the progeny were fertile. |
 Turnip rape |
Topic: Are the progeny of oilseed rape and related species, in this case turnip rape, more or less susceptible to fungal diseases? Results: In the laboratory and under field conditions, disease incidence in hybrids from summer rape and turnip rape was lower than for oilseed rape varieties. Further investigations are needed to determine whether these findings indicate an increased fitness in the rape/turnip rape hybrids. |
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