Purdue News
Purdue News
This month, the research that led to Volenec's views got him elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest federation of scientists. Fellows receive a certificate and pin at the February 1998 AAAS Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
Volenec's views fly in the face of convention.
"I don't buy into the party line," says Volenec, a professor of agronomy who's been on the Purdue faculty since 1983. "Alfalfa breeders need to select for persistence and high yield, rather than disease resistance. They need to move away from conventional notions that result in disease resistance remaining the focus of many alfalfa-breeding programs nationwide."
Farmers long have wished that their alfalfa stands would last six years rather than the usual three or four, Volenec says. If plants were bred directly for persistence, farmers might get that six years. Then they'd spend about half the time and money for replanting.
Only the large, carrot-like roots of alfalfa persist to regenerate a plant at winter's end and after each spring or summer cutting, so that's where Volenec focused his research. Volenec was the first to find that alfalfa plants survive better when they have greater protein reserves in the roots. He showed that alfalfa shoots grow much better after cutting if the plant has large protein reserves in its roots and high levels of enzymes that break down starches to simple sugars.
"Alfalfa operates a lot like most trees, taking protein out of the leaves in autumn and storing it in the roots for the winter," Volenec says. "They depend on that stored protein to start regrowth in the spring."
Volenec and his co-workers have worked to develop molecular probes that can rapidly screen alfalfa plants for protein and enzyme levels. After the probes are perfected, plant breeders will more quickly be able to get longer-lasting alfalfa varieties on the market.
Currently, however, most alfalfa breeders haven't picked up on Volenec's findings, even though other researchers in the United States and France have confirmed them. They're still working to improve only pest resistance, believing that persistence will improve when alfalfa better resists pests.
Volenec disputes that belief.
"I used their own data," Volenec says, "and showed that with continued breeding for disease resistance, plants didn't live longer. In fact, in some cases, longevity declined."
Volenec says he hopes this latest award will cause alfalfa breeders to look again at the data. And maybe it will begin the redirection that he envisions for the industry.
Volenec is editor-in-chief of Crop Science and a Fellow of both the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America. He won the 1993 CIBA-Geigy Award in Agronomy and the 1992 Young Crop Scientist Award from the Crop Science Society of America.
Source: Jeffrey J. Volenec, (765) 494-8071; e-mail, jvolenec@dept.agry.purdue.edu
Writer: Rebecca Goetz (765) 494-0461; e-mail, rjg@aes.purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
