Life Sciences Commons^™

Nutritive Value And Silage Quality In Fodder Sorghum (Sorghum Bicolor), Maize (Zea Mays) And Hybrid Napier (Pennisetum Americarnum × P. Purpureum) Grown In Sri Lanka, P. G. G. Bandara, W. A. D. Nayananjalie, G. G. C. Premalal

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

For continuous genetic improvement of cows, nutrition and management conditions should be improved to allow cow to produce its inherited potential production. However, many farmers not pay desired attention on forage quality and one of the main reasons for the low productivity of dairy cattle is under nutrition. Therefore, production of high quality fodder varieties is vital for strengthening the dairy sector in Sri Lanka. Hybrid Napier var. CO-3 is widely used for cattle feeding in Sri Lanka. It is important to find out other forage varieties with maximum nutritive values and minimum anti-nutritive factors which can be used as …

Effect Of Fertilizer Level And Intercropping With Bambara Nut (Vigna Subterranea) On The Growth And Herbage Yield Of Maize, Kelechi A. Ike, Leonard C. Nwaigbo, Chioma P. Obasi, Jimoh A. Olanite, Ogechi M. Chilaka

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The low fertility status of most tropical soils has hindered maize production as maize has a strong exhausting effect on the soil. It has been generally observed that maize fails to produce good grain in plots without adequate nutrients (Adediran and Banjoko 2003). Legumes generally are able to fix nitrogen to the soil which the companion crop could benefit from, but usually the nitrogen fixed occurs in insufficient quantities for marginally nitrogen sensitive crops such as maize and hence the required use of fertilizers. Inorganic fertilizers exert strong influences on plant growth, development and yield (Stefano et al. 2004). …

Effect Of Plant Spacing On The Growth And Yield Of Forage Plant, Maize, Intercropped With Cowpea (Vigna Unguiculata Sub Spp. Sesquipedalis), Kelechi A. Ike, Leonard C. Nwaigbo, Ugochukwu H. Ukpabi, Sunday N. Ukachukwu, Olufemi S. Onifade, Uchenna Y. Anele, Princewill N. Njoku

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Feed constraint is the most important impediment to improved livestock production in the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries (Agyemang 2003), as a result of seasonal shortages in the quantity and quality of forage from natural pastures that supply most of the feed for animals due to the prolonged annual dry season. Appropriate technologies to improve the performance of the local animal breeds and feed resources under the traditional system are generally lacking. Maize forms a major part of the cereal crops consumed by man and the residues serve as a source of fodder for livestock (Asawalam and Adesiyan 2001). Demand for …

Estimation Of Maize Yield And Effects Of Variable-Rate Nitrogen Application Using Uav-Based Rgb Imagery, Meina Zhang, Jianfeng Zhou, Kenneth A. Sudduth, Newell R. Kitchen

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Accurate crop yield estimation is important for agronomic and economic decision-making. This study evaluated the performance of imagery data acquired using a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based imaging system for estimating yield of maize (Zea mays L.) and the effects of variable-rate nitrogen (N) application on crops. Images of a 27-ha maize field were captured using a UAV with a consumer-grade RGB camera flying at ~100 m above ground level at three maize growth stages. The collected sequential images were stitched and the Excess Green (ExG) colour feature was extracted to develop prediction models for maize yield and to examine the …

Leaf Angle Extractor: A High-Throughput Image Processing Framework For Leaf Angle Measurements In Maize And Sorghum, Sunil Kumar Kenchanmane Raju, Miles Adkins, Alex Enersen, Daniel Santana De Carvalho, Anthony J. Studer, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Patrick S. Schnable, James C. Schnable

Center for Plant Science Innovation: Faculty and Staff Publications

PREMISE: Maize yields have significantly increased over the past half-century owing to advances in breeding and agronomic practices. Plants have been grown in increasingly higher densities due to changes in plant architecture resulting in plants with more upright leaves, which allows more efficient light interception for photosynthesis. Natural variation for leaf angle has been identified in maize and sorghum using multiple mapping populations. However, conventional phenotyping techniques for leaf angle are low throughput and labor intensive, and therefore hinder a mechanistic understanding of how the leaf angle of individual leaves changes over time in response to the environment.

METHODS …

Benchmarking Impact Of Nitrogen Inputs On Grain Yield And Environmental Performance Of Producer Fields In The Western Us Corn Belt, Fatima A.M. Tenorio, Eileen L. Mclellan, Alison J. Eagle, Kenneth G. Cassman, Daryl Andersen, Marie Krausnick, Russell Oaklund, John Thorburn, Patricio Grassini

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Benchmarking crop yields against nitrogen (N) input levels can help provide opportunities to improve N ferti-lizer efficiency and reduce N losses on maize in the US Corn Belt by identifying fields most likely to benefit from improved N management practices. Here, we evaluated a large producer database that includes field-level data on yield and applied N inputs from 9280 irrigated and rainfed fields over a 7-year period (2009–2015) in Nebraska (USA). A spatial framework, based on technology extrapolation domains, was used to cluster each field into spatial units with similar climate and soil type that represent 1.3 million ha of …

Genome-Wide Identification And Analysis Of Heterotic Loci In Three Maize Hybrids, Hongjun Liu, Qin Wang, Mengjiao Chen, Yahui Ding, Xuerong Yang, Jie Liu, Xiaohan Li, Congcong Zhou, Qilin Tian, Yiqi Lu, Danlin Fan, Junpeng Shi, Lin Zhang, Congbin Kang, Mingfei Mingfei Sun, Fangyuan Li, Yujian Wu, Yongzhong Zhang, Baoshen Liu, Xiang Yu Zhao, Qi Feng, Jinliang Yang, Bin Han, Jinsheng Lai, Xian Sheng Zhang, Xuehui Huang

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Heterosis, or hybrid vigour, is a predominant phenomenon in plant genetics, serving as the basis of crop hybrid breeding, but the causative loci and genes underlying heterosis remain unclear in many crops. Here, we present a large-scale genetic analysis using 5360 offsprings from three elite maize hybrids, which identifies 628 loci underlying 19 yield-related traits with relatively high mapping resolutions. Heterotic pattern investigations of the 628 loci show that numerous loci, mostly with complete–incomplete dominance (the major one) or overdominance effects (the secondary one) for heterozygous genotypes and nearly equal proportion of advantageous alleles from both parental lines, are the …

Corn Yield Response To Nitrogen In North-Central Kansas, A. A. Correndo, I. A. Ciampitti

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

The aim of this study was to evaluate the response of corn (Zea maysL.) grain yield to nitrogen (N) fertilizer. During the 2019 cropping season, an N rate experiment in corn was established in Scandia, KS, evaluating five N fertilizer rates as UAN (28-0-0) under both dryland and irrigated conditions. Average yields ranged from 138 to 236 bu/a under rainfed and from 153 to 249 bu/a for irrigated conditions. Under both dryland and irrigated conditions, maximum yields were achieved with an N rate of about 161 lb/a. Total N supply was calculated as N at planting plus fertilizer …

The Potential Of Refugee Seed Systems To Promote Contemporary Adaptation In Traditional Crops: A Case Study Of African Maize In New England, Andi Kur

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

There are many mechanisms by which landraces evolve in a contemporary agricultural setting; however, the influence of forced human migration on landrace redistribution and evolution has received little attention in comparison to the stochastic effects of drift, mutation, and gene flow in the centers of origin. Although the seed systems of forcedly-displaced people remain poorly understood, evidence suggests that refugees often continue to grow traditional crops after resettlement. From a genetics perspective, the crops that are transported to highly disparate environments provide an interesting opportunity to study adaptation.

This research addresses how forced human migration has impacted contemporary landrace evolution …

Crispr-Cas9 Editing Of Nitrate Transporter Gene, Um03849, In Ustilago Maydis, Luke A. Schroeder, Sunita Khanal, Michael H. Perlin

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Ustilago maydis, the basidiomycete smut-fungus, can infect and cause tumors in corn plants. For this, mating between compatible haploid cells is important. The mating and subsequent dimorphic transition in U. maydis require starvation for nutrients such as nitrogen, in addition to pheromone-receptor interactions between compatible partners. In this research, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique was used to create INDEL mutations (sequence insertion or deletion) in the nitrate transporter gene, um03849, in U. maydis. The gene was edited in mating compatible haploid strains 1/2 and 2/9. The phenotypes were characterized for the um03849 mutants as to growth ability, mating …

The Endogenous L-Cysteine Desulfhydrase And Hydrogen Sulfide Participate In Supplemented Phosphorus-Induced Tolerance To Salinity Stress In Maize (Zea Mays) Plants, Cengi̇z Kaya, Muhammad Ashraf

Turkish Journal of Botany

Although phosphorus supplementation (SP) has been shown to improve salinity tolerance in plants, crosstalk between hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or L-cysteine desulfhydrase (LDES) and SP-induced salinity tolerance needs to be elucidated. Thus, prior to initiation of stress treatment, young seedlings were transferred to aqueous solution containing the scavenger of H2S, 0.1 mM hypotaurine (HT), or the inhibitor of LDES, 0.3 mM DL-propargylglycine (PAG), for 12 h. The plants grown under control (no NaCl added) or salinity stress (SS; 100 mM NaCl) were then supplemented with SP (2.0 mM in total) as KH2PO4 for 5 weeks. SS caused a significant decrease in …

Regulation Of Antioxidant Activity In Maize (Zea Mays L.) By Exogenous Application Of Sulfur Under Saline Conditions, Alia Riffat, Muhammad Sajid Aqeel Ahmad

Turkish Journal of Botany

One of the major effects of salt stress is high production of reactive oxygen species that adversely affect essential cellular metabolic pathways. To limit the elevated production of reactive oxygen species, plants stimulate various types of antioxidants. In this study, sulfur was used to induce tolerance against oxidative stress through modulation of the activities of various antioxidants. Two maize genotypes (Agatti 2003 and Pak Afgoi 2003) were subjected to different salinity (25 and 75 mM) and sulfur (40 and 80 mM) treatments and a control treatment. Various antioxidants and oxidative stress determinants in maize organs (leaf, shoot, and root) were …

Dynamics Of Post-Flowering Nitrogen Uptake And Nitrogen Recovery Efficiency Using 15n Isotope Labeling In Corn, J. A. Fernandez, J. B. Nippert, I. A. Ciampitti

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

In corn (Zea maysL.), breeding and selection for grain yield over time has been accom­panied by a simultaneous increase in plant nitrogen (N) uptake. The understanding of plant N dynamics has attracted attention due to the environmental concerns related to N losses coming from fertilization. This research study was implemented to 1) describe N uptake and allocation dynamics, and 2) quantify fertilizer recovery efficiency across late-N strategies. Two field experiments (one under irrigation and one rainfed) were conducted at the Ashland Bottoms Research Farm, KS, during 2017. Three hybrids with different year of release and three N scenarios …

Benchmarking On-Farm Maize Nitrogen Balance In The Western U.S. Corn Belt, Fatima Amor Tenorio

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

A nitrogen (N) balance, calculated as the difference between N inputs and grain-N removal, provides an estimate of the potential N losses. We used N balance with other N-related metrics (partial factor productivity for N inputs, and yield-scaled N balance), to benchmark maize yields in relation with N input use in the US Corn Belt. We first used experimental data on grain-N concentration (GNC) to assess variation in this parameter due to biophysical and management factors. Subsequently, we used N balance and N-related metrics to benchmark yields in relation with N inputs in irrigated and rainfed fields in Nebraska using …

Transgenic Control Of Aflatoxin Contamination In Maize Through Host-Induced Gene Silencing Targeting Aspergillus Flavus Genes Encoding Polygalacturonase (P2c) And Versicolorin Dehydrogenase (Aflm), Yenjit Raruang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Maize (Zea mays L.) is susceptible to Aspergillus flavus infection and subsequent contamination with aflatoxins, the most potent naturally produced carcinogenic secondary metabolites. Here, the A. flavus gene aflM encoding the versicolorin dehydrogenase in aflatoxin biosynthesis and the p2c gene encoding the polygalacturonase that is involved in infection were selected as targets for suppression through host induced gene silencing (HIGS). A HIGS vector targeting these genes was constructed and introduced into immature B104 maize embryos. Thirteen out of fifteen p2c transformation events and six out of seven aflM events were confirmed positive by PCR. Kernels containing the p2c gene …

Effects Of Severe Water Stress On Maize Growth Processes In The Field, Libing Song, Jiming Jin, Jianqiang He

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

In this study, we investigated the effects of water stress on the growth and yield of summer maize (Zea mays L.) over four phenological stages: Seedling, jointing, heading, and grain-filling. Water stress treatments were applied during each of these four stages in a water-controlled field in the Guanzhong Plain, China between 2013 and 2016. We found that severe water stress during the seedling stage had a greater effect on the growth and development of maize than stress applied during the other three stages. Water stress led to lower leaf area index (LAI) and biomass owing to reduced intercepted photosynthetically active …

Regenerating Agricultural Landscapes With Perennial Groundcover For Intensive Crop Production, Kenneth J. Moore, Robert P. Anex, Amani E. Elobeid, Shuizhang Fei, Cornelia B. Flora, A. Susana Goggi, Keri L. Jacobs, Prashant Jha, Amy L. Kaleita, Douglas L. Karlen, David A. Laird, Andrew W. Lenssen, Thomas Lubberstedt, Marshall D. Mcdaniel, D. Raj Raman, Sharon L. Weyers

Douglas L Karlen

The Midwestern U.S. landscape is one of the most highly altered and intensively managed ecosystems in the country. The predominant crops grown are maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr]. They are typically grown as monocrops in a simple yearly rotation or with multiple years of maize (2 to 3) followed by a single year of soybean. This system is highly productive because the crops and management systems have been well adapted to the regional growing conditions through substantial public and private investment. Furthermore, markets and supporting infrastructure are highly developed for both crops. As maize and …

New Approaches To Use Genomics, Field Traits, And High-Throughput Phenotyping For Gene Discovery In Maize (Zea Mays), Zhikai Liang

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

Maize is one of major crop species over the world. With lots of genetic resources and genomic tools, maize also serves as a model species to understand genetic diversity, facilitate the development of trait extraction algorithms and map candidate functional genes. Since the first version of widely used B73 reference genome was released, independent research groups in the maize community propagated seeds themselves for further research purposes. However, unexpected or occasional contamination may happen during this process. The first study in this thesis used public RNA-seq data of B73 from 27 research groups across three countries for calling single nucleotide …

Extreme‐Phenotype Genome‐Wide Association Study (Xp‐Gwas): A Method For Identifying Trait‐Associated Variants By Sequencing Pools Of Individuals Selected From A Diversity Panel, Jinliang Yang, Haiying Jiang, Cheng-Ting Yeh, Jianming Yu, Jeffrey A. Jeddeloh, Dan Nettleton, Patrick S. Schnable

Dan Nettleton

Although approaches for performing genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) are well developed, conventional GWAS requires high‐density genotyping of large numbers of individuals from a diversity panel. Here we report a method for performing GWAS that does not require genotyping of large numbers of individuals. Instead XP‐GWAS (extreme‐phenotype GWAS) relies on genotyping pools of individuals from a diversity panel that have extreme phenotypes. This analysis measures allele frequencies in the extreme pools, enabling discovery of associations between genetic variants and traits of interest. This method was evaluated in maize (Zea mays) using the well‐characterized kernel row number trait, which was …

Extensive Tissue-Specific Transcriptomic Plasticity In Maize Primary Roots Upon Water Deficit, Nina Opitz, Caroline Marcon, Anja Paschold, Waqas Ahmed Malik, Andrew Lithio, Ronny Brandt, Hans-Peter Piepho, Dan Nettleton, Frank Hochholdinger

Dan Nettleton

Water deficit is the most important environmental constraint severely limiting global crop growth and productivity. This study investigated early transcriptome changes in maize (Zea mays L.) primary root tissues in response to moderate water deficit conditions by RNA-Sequencing. Differential gene expression analyses revealed a high degree of plasticity of the water deficit response. The activity status of genes (active/inactive) was determined by a Bayesian hierarchical model. In total, 70% of expressed genes were constitutively active in all tissues. In contrast, <3% (50 genes) of water deficit-responsive genes (1915) were consistently regulated in all tissues, while >75% (1501 genes) were specifically regulated in a single root tissue. Water deficit-responsive genes were most numerous in the …

Mu Transposon Insertion Sites And Meiotic Recombination Events Co-Localize With Epigenetic Marks For Open Chromatin Across The Maize Genome, Sanzhen Liu, Cheng-Ting Yeh, Tieming Ji, Kai Ying, Haiyan Wu, Ho Man Tang, Yan Fu, Daniel S. Nettleton, Patrick S. Schnable

Dan Nettleton

The Mu transposon system of maize is highly active, with each of the ∼50–100 copies transposing on average once each generation. The approximately one dozen distinct Mutransposons contain highly similar ∼215 bp terminal inverted repeats (TIRs) and generate 9-bp target site duplications (TSDs) upon insertion. Using a novel genome walking strategy that uses these conserved TIRs as primer binding sites, Mu insertion sites were amplified from Mu stocks and sequenced via 454 technology. 94% of ∼965,000 reads carried Mu TIRs, demonstrating the specificity of this strategy. Among these TIRs, 21 novel Mu TIRs were discovered, revealing additional complexity of …

Meta-Analysis Of Yield Response Of Foliar Fungicide-Treated Hybrid Corn In The United States And Ontario, Canada, Kiersten A. Wise, Damon Smith, Anna Freije, Daren S. Mueller, Yuba Kandel, Tom Allen, Carl A. Bradley, Emmanuel Byamukama, Martin Chilvers, Travis Faske, Andrew Friskop, Clayton Hollier, Tamra A. Jackson-Ziems, Heather Kelly, Bob Kemerait, Paul Price Iii, Alison Robertson, Albert Tenuta

Plant Pathology Faculty Publications

Background

Foliar fungicide applications to corn (Zea mays L.) occur at one or more application timings ranging from early vegetative growth stages to mid-reproductive stages. Previous studies indicated that fungicide applications are profitable under high disease pressure when applied during the tasseling to silking growth stages. Few comprehensive studies in corn have examined the impact of fungicide applications at an early vegetative growth stage (V6) compared to late application timings (VT) for yield response and return on fungicide investment (ROI) across multiple locations.

Objective

Compare yield response of fungicide application timing across multiple fungicide classes and calculate the probability …

Spontaneous Mutations In Maize Pollen Are Frequent In Some Lines And Arise Mainly From Retrotranspositions And Deletions, Hugo K. Dooner, Qinghua Wang, Jun T. Huang, Yubin Li, Limei He, Wenwei Xiong, Chunguang Du

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

While studying spontaneous mutations at the maize bronze (bz) locus, we made the unexpected discovery that specific low-copy number retrotransposons are mobile in the pollen of some maize lines, but not of others. We conducted large-scale genetic experiments to isolate new bz mutations from several Bz stocks and recovered spontaneous stable mutations only in the pollen parent in reciprocal crosses. Most of the new stable bz mutations resulted from either insertions of low-copy number long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons or deletions, the same two classes of mutations that predominated in a collection of spontaneous wx mutations [Wessler S (1997) The …

Evaluation Of Foliar Insecticides For The Control Of Western Bean Cutworm In Field Corn, 2018, Katharine A. Swoboda-Bhattarai, Samantha R. Daniel, Julie A. Peterson

West Central Research and Extension Center, North Platte

The objectives of this field trial were to evaluate the efficacy of single applications of foliar insecticides at preventing feeding damage by the western bean cutworm (WBC), an important pest of corn and dry beans that has undergone a rapid range expansion into the eastern Corn Belt during the last 18 yr. This study was conducted within the historic range of WBC, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Henry J. Stumpf International Wheat Center in Perkins County, NE (40.856851°N, −101.701335°W). An RCB design with a total of 16 treatments (including an untreated check) and four replications was used. Plots measured 20 …

Effect Of Late Nitrogen Fertilization On Grain Yield And Grain Filling In Corn, J. A. Fernandez, I. A. Ciampitti

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

For decades, yield improvement in corn has been accompanied by an increase in plant nitrogen (N) uptake. Modern hybrids are absorbing more N during reproductive stages, while delaying N remobilization to the grain for later in the growing season. To evaluate the effect of late-season N applications in distinct corn genotypes, grain yield and grain filling parameters were evaluated in field experiments under early and late N regimes during 2017 and 2018 growing seasons. Hybrids with different release years (3394, 1990s; P1151, 2000s; and P1197, 2016) and contrasting N application scenarios (including a zero-N control) were evaluated at the Kansas …

Validation Of Candidate Loci For Maize Regrowability And Selection Of Near Isogenic Lines For The Loci, Tajbir Raihan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Developing perennial grain crops is an effective way for sustainable agriculture and it can be a tool for the betterment of the overall ecosystem. To understand how perenniality works in perennial species, we made a cross between Zea diploperennis and maize (Z. mays) inbred line B73. F1 hybrids produced from this cross were selfed to get the F2 population and later the F2 population underwent Genotyping-By- Sequencing (GBS) analysis. Based on the candidate loci identified on chromosome 2 and chromosome 7 from GBS, SNP-specific markers were developed from the candidate locus interval and used to genotype the F2 …

Pursuing The Best Management Strategies For Corn-Soybean Rotation Systems In North Central Kansas, A. A. Correndo, I. A. Ciampitti

Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Reports

The aim of this study was to evaluate different management strategies for improving yield productivity in corn (Zea maysL.) and soybean [Glycine max(L.) Merr.] rotation systems. During the 2018 season, a long-term corn-soybean experiment was continued in Scandia, KS, evaluating five management strategies under rainfed and irrigated conditions. For corn, average yields were 146 bu/a and 172 bu/a under rainfed and irrigated conditions, respectively. For soybean, rainfed and irrigated average seed yields were similar (47–50 bu/a), attributed to herbicide injury on the irrigated plots. For both crop and water scenarios, intensifying the crop management (by modifying …

Grass-Specific Mechanisms Of Iron Uptake: Investigation Of Phytosiderophore Transporters And Discovery Of Novel Iron Deficiency Loci, David Chan Rodriguez

Doctoral Dissertations

Iron-deficiency anemia is one of the most prevalent forms of malnutrition worldwide, affecting 1.62 billion people, with the population in developing countries being the most affected. Iron is equally vital in plants to perform essential functions such as photosynthesis. Crop grasses form part of everyday human nutrition, contribute fundamentally to human caloric intake, and, in some parts of the world, are the primary source of food. Grasses acquire iron from the soil by secreting chelator molecules called phytosiderophores to solubilize iron, making it available to be transported by the Yellow Stripe1 (YS1) transporter. In this dissertation, I studied aspects of …

Cover Crops Have Negligible Impact On Soil Water In Nebraska Maize–Soybean Rotation, J. Burdette Barker, Derek M. Heeren, Katja Koehler-Cole, Charles Shapiro, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Roger W. Elmore, Christopher A. Proctor, Suat Irmak, Charles A. Francis, Tim M. Shaver, Ali T. Mohammed

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

One perceived cost of integrating winter cover cropping in maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation systems is the potential negative impact on soil water storage available for primary crop production. The objective of this 3-year study was to evaluate the effects of winter cover crops on soil water storage and cover crop biomass production following no-till maize and soybean rotations. Locations were near Brule (west-central), Clay Center (south-central), Concord (northeast), and Mead (east-central), Nebraska, United States. Treatments included crop residue only (no cover crop) and a multi-species cover crop mix, both broadcast-seeded before …

Diversity In Tiller Suppression Of Domesticated Cereals: Morphologicalvariance Observed In Maize, Sorghum, And Setaria, Muriel Tahiameiani Longstaff

Theses and Dissertations

Tillers are vegetative branches found in grasses, which develop in early stages of plant life. Located at the base of the central stalk, tillers have agronomical importance by increasing seed production with fewer tillers, or providing alternative forms of biofuel with more tillers. As grains have typically decreased tiller number while undergoing domestication, we explored wild and domesticated strains of varying grains by doing a morphological analysis on tiller development. This thesis shows how the decrease of tillers through in domestication cereals shows diversity not only across maize, Sorghum, and Setaria, but also between lines of maize and Setaria species. …