ASHS 2024 Conference

Carya illinoinensis (pecan) belongs to the Juglandaceae family, and the native region extends from Illinois, USA to Oaxaca, Mexico. Pecan is a valuable economic crop due to its nutritious and tasty nuts, and the United States produced 275 million pounds of pecans in 2022. As temperatures are increasing it is important to understand the impact on pecan trees. By 2100, the average U.S. temperature is projected to increase by about 3°F to 12°F. Plants deal with heat stress in several different ways including the production of heat shock proteins (HSPs) and their transcription factors known as heat shock factors (HSFs). HSFs initiate the transcription of genes that encode heat shock proteins (HSPs), that deal with heat stress by initiating protein folding and aid in the repair or removal of damaged proteins. In this study, we aim to look at the genetic networks that are impacted when multiple genotypes are subjected to high-heat environments. For this study, seedstocks from multiple genotypes that span the geographic region of North America were introduced into micropropagation. These include seedstocks from ‘Elliott’, ‘Apache’, ‘Cape Fear’, ‘Mahan’, ‘Giles’, ‘Sioux’, ‘Wichita’, ‘Western’, and native seedstocks of unknown genetics from Ohio. A preliminary heat stress assay was performed on a micropropagated ‘Elliott’ line by subjecting three small trees to 43°C for two hours prior to flash freezing in liquid nitrogen and comparing these to the same clonal line (three trees) that remained at 23°C. Real time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (QRT-PCR) was performed on the heat stress and control trees. Normalized gene expression indicated that CiHSP1 expression was 2X higher in the heat-treated pecan trees than CiHSP1 expression of the control trees. The additional micropropagated seedstocks listed above are being subjected to heat stress at different temperature ranges and time intervals. The replicated assays will be analyzed using RNA-Seq and qRT-PCR to determine differential gene expression of control and heat-treated trees especially between the HSPs and HSFs. These assays will help determine the gene networks that pecan trees use as they experience heat stress and will help determine how different pecan genetics that originate in different geographic regions react to heat stress.