Transcriptomics of winter oilseed rape under drought stress and control conditions

Eight contrasting winter oilseed rape accessions were planted in large containers over the total growth period. Before beginning of flowering, watering for stress plants was stopped for three weeks, while control plants were kept at 60 % water retention capacity. Plants were sampled before vernalization (BBCH18), after vernalization (BBCH20), before flowering (BBCH50) and stress treatment, at beginning of flowering (8 days stress, BBCH 60), at full flowering (21 days stress, BBCH 65) and during ripening (BBCH75) for leafs, flowers and siliques. Samples were either used for small RNA sequencing and/or RNAseq. The goal was to characterize the drought stress response and identify possible protective genes.