The sesame plant is one of the oldest oil crops in the world, and its seeds are used for a wide variety of products in the field of food (grinding, oil and pastry coating) and medicine. Its high nutritional value and taste qualities have led to an increase in global demand for sesame seeds and their products as a "superfood". Today, most of the growing areas are concentrated in developing countries, traditionally grown and yielding low yields.
A new study, led by doctoral student Idan Sabag and guided by Prof. Zvi Peleg, from the Faculty of Food and Environmental Agriculture at the Hebrew University, discovered for the first time the gene responsible for the connection between the flowering timing of the plant and the seed yield. This discovery will make it possible to adapt the sesame to different growing environments - among them Israel.
The sesame is a plant with a non-terminating nature of growth, meaning that its flowering continues as long as the conditions allow it, therefore studying the genetic control of flowering could contribute to improving crops. The researchers characterized a wide collection of sesame plants from different geographical sources in the world and tested their flowering time feature, morphological and physiological properties as well as the various components of the crop under Mediterranean growing conditions. In order to learn about the genetic control of the traits, a mapping was performed that yielded 50 genetic sites that are in association with the characterized traits. One of them, which contains seven genes, was found to affect both the flowering time trait and various crop components. This result testifies to the strong genetic relationship of these traits and demonstrates the importance of flowering timing for increasing sesame yields.
According to Prof. Peleg, "in the past, growing sesame was one of the main crops in Israeli agriculture, however, due to the need for a lot of manpower to grow it, it was abandoned in favor of crops with more margins. The constant increase in demand and the suitability of sesame for growing under high temperatures associated with climate change, led to an attempt to return it to agriculture in Israel Finding the connection between the timing of flowering and the components of the crop, will help in the future to adapt this crop to deal with The climate changes, and together with other developments in our laboratory, will transform the cultivation of sesame from a traditional local cultivation to a modern and global cultivation."
