Dow Agrosciences LLC

Mandy Lynne Sullivan-Gilbert

Xueyi Hu

Manju Gupta

Steven Arnold Thompson

Jan E Backlund

James T Gerdes

This disclosure concerns methods and compositions for identifying sunflower plants that have a low palmitic acid content phenotype. Some embodiments concern molecular markers to identify, select, and/or construct low palmitic acid content plants and germplasm, or to identify and counter-select relatively high palmitic acid content plants. This disclosure also concerns sunflower plants comprising a low palmitic acid content phenotype that are generated by methods utilizing at least one marker described herein.

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The present invention provides methods of marker-assisted selection for high oleic/low linolenic traits in canola and in other oil seed crop species, as well as isolated nucleic acids for use as molecular markers in such methods. In particular, molecular markers andnucleic acid corresponding to fad2 and fad3 gene mutations are disclosed. The markers of the present invention are highly useful for the direct selection of desirable fad2 and fad3 alleles during marker-assisted trait introgression and breeding. In one aspect of the embodiment, two single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers are provided that correspond to the alleles. Thus, the present invention advantageously permits one of skill in the art to breed for the molecular markers described herein, or derivatives thereof, rather than breeding for a high oleic/low linolenic phenotype.

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Carmel, IN, United States of America

Mandy Lynne Sullivan-Gilbert