Nolan Kane, PhD

Associate Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder

As hemp continues to become an ever more economically valuable/important crop, it becomes increasingly necessary to understand the mechanism of sex determination. Understanding these processes will help to develop new approaches, tools, and pipelines, which will propel Cannabis into the modern era as a legitimate crop species. Using crosses between dioecious and monoecious hemp varieties expressing variable levels of male to female flowering ratios, we propose to 1. understand the evolution and function of the X and Y chromosomes; 2. elucidate whether other genetic loci, autosomal and/or cytoplasmic, are important in sex determination; and 3. better characterize the effect of environment on sex expression plasticity. We will test the relative roles of cytoplasmic and nuclear factors in sex determination, quantitatively. The data collected from our crosses will be used to test the hypothesis that CMS mutations lead to gynodioecy in the absence of a Y chromosome, while the Y restores male fertility in a CMS background. This will aid breeders and growers in controlling the production of pollen-producing males and hermaphrodites, as well as understanding the early, ongoing evolution of a Y chromosome.