Development of high curcumin containing turmeric varieties for production in Alabama

Environmental stress can significantly affect biomass production in plants. Biotic and abiotic stresses can affect the production of secondary metabolites in plants (Gorelick et al., 2015), thereby affecting overall plant growth and development. Curcumin synthesis and production can vary significantly under various environmental conditions, and can negatively affect large scale production of turmeric (Akbar et al., 2016). Understanding the molecular responses of plants to environmental stresses can help us to understand the production of curcumin under various environmental conditions, thereby optimizing the growth conditions for maximum curcumin accumulation in rhizomes. We will use RNA-Seq to analyze changing cellular transcriptome, i.e., differential expression of genes under various abiotic stress conditions. Turmeric plants will be grown in plant growth chambers at 25OC as control. Plants from the same genotype will be grown in a separate plant growth chamber at 42OC to study heat stress.