Life Sciences Commons^™

Plasticity Of Sorghum Biomass And Inflorescence Traits In Response To Nitrogen Application, Kyle M. Linders

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient required for growth and development in plants. Insufficient nitrogen availability can reduce vegetative growth and grain yield. However, nitrogen is a costly input for farmers, is energy intensive to manufacture, and runoff of excess nitrogen fertilizer impacts water quality. Compared to its close relative, maize, sorghum has much greater resilience to nitrogen and water deficit, and heat stress, allowing sorghum to be grown with fewer inputs and on marginal land. Variation in total biomass accumulation and grain yield between sorghum accessions, as well as between nitrogen conditions, can be largely explained by differences in vegetative …

A Leaf-Level Spectral Library To Support High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping: Predictive Accuracy And Model Transfer, Nuwan K. Wijewardane, Huichun Zhang, Jinliang Yang, James C. Schnable, Daniel P. Schachtman, Yufeng Ge

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Leaf-level hyperspectral reflectance has become an effective tool for high-throughput phenotyping of plant leaf traits due to its rapid, low-cost, multi-sensing, and non-destructive nature. However, collecting samples for model calibration can still be expensive, and models show poor transferability among different datasets. This study had three specific objectives: first, to assemble a large library of leaf hyperspectral data (n=2460) from maize and sorghum; second, to evaluate two machine-learning approaches to estimate nine leaf properties (chlorophyll, thickness, water content, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur); and third, to investigate the usefulness of this spectral library for predicting external datasets …

Large And Stable Genome Edits At The Sorghum Alpha Kafirin Locus Result In Changes In Chromatin Accessibility And Globally Increased Expression Of Genes Encoding Lysine Enrichment, J. Preston Hurst, Abou Yobi, Aixia Li, Shirley Sato, Thomas E. Clemente, Ruthie Angelovici

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Introduction: Sorghum is a resilient and widely cultivated grain crop used for feed and food. However, it’s grain is deficient in lysine, an essential amino acid. This is due to the primary seed storage proteins, the alpha-kafirins, lacking lysine. It has been observed that reductions in alpha-kafirin protein results in rebalancing of the seed proteome and a corresponding increase in non-kafirin proteins which leads to an increased lysine content. However, the mechanisms underlying proteome rebalancing are unclear. This study characterizes a previously developed gene edited sorghum line, with deletions at the alpha kafirin locus.

Methods: A single consensus …

Large And Stable Genome Edits At The Sorghum Alpha Kafirin Locus Result In Changes In Chromatin Accessibility And Globally Increased Expression Of Genes Encoding Lysine Enrichment, J. Preston Hurst, Abou Yobi, Aixia Li, Shirley Sato, Thomas E. Clemente, Ruthie Angelovici, David R. Holding

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Introduction: Sorghum is a resilient and widely cultivated grain crop used for feed and food. However, it’s grain is deficient in lysine, an essential amino acid. This is due to the primary seed storage proteins, the alpha-kafirins, lacking lysine. It has been observed that reductions in alpha-kafirin protein results in rebalancing of the seed proteome and a corresponding increase in non-kafirin proteins which leads to an increased lysine content. However, the mechanisms underlying proteome rebalancing are unclear. This study characterizes a previously developed gene edited sorghum line, with deletions at the alpha kafirin locus.

Methods: A single consensus …

Ensiling Of Tannin-Containing Sorghum Grain, E. M. Ott, Y. Acosta Aragón, M. Gabel

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Sorghum is known as important feed-stuff in tropical regions where rainfall is insufficient for the cultivation of maize. Furthermore, those sorghum cultivars rich in tannins are naturally protected to a certain extent against bird damage, insect pests and moulds. Nevertheless, tannins impair the feed quality. Thus, the objectives of this study were to investigate whether ensiling could be a suitable preservation method for sorghum grain originally rich in tannins and if it is possible to reduce tannin content during fermentation.

Comparison Of Different Maize Hybrids Cultivated And Fermented With Or Without Sorghum, Sz. Orosz, Z. Bellus, Zs. Kelemen, E. Zerényi, J. Helembai

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

In Hungary our key forage crop is silage maize, however, the joint growing of maize and sorghum is increasingly important in arid regions. The reason is, that sorghum varieties tolerate well the various ecological stresses (drought). The joint growing of maize and sorghum varieties has several advantages and disadvantageous in respect of yields, safety of production, fermentability of the crop and nutrient content of the silage. The basis of realising the complementary qualities of the two crops and of the successful joint growing and preservation is the suitable pairing of hybrid varieties.