Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons^™

Domestication Reshaped The Genetic Basis Of Inbreeding Depression In A Maize Landrace Compared To Its Wild Relative, Teosinte, Luis Fernando Samayoa, Bode A. Olukolu, Chin Jian Yang, Qiuyue Chen, Markus G. Stetter, Alessandra M. York, Jose De Jesus Sanchez-Gonzalez, Jeffrey C. Glaubitz, Peter J. Bradbury, Maria Cinta Romay, Qi Sun, Jinliang Yang, Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, Edward S. Buckler, John F. Doebley, James B. Holland

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Inbreeding depression is the reduction in fitness and vigor resulting from mating of close relatives observed in many plant and animal species. The extent to which the genetic load of mutations contributing to inbreeding depression is due to large-effect mutations versus variants with very small individual effects is unknown and may be affected by population history. We compared the effects of outcrossing and self-fertilization on 18 traits in a landrace population of maize, which underwent a population bottleneck during domestication, and a neighboring population of its wild relative teosinte. Inbreeding depression was greater in maize than teosinte for 15 of …

Identification Of Candidate Genes And Genomic Regions Associated With Adult Plant Resistance To Stripe Rust In Spring Wheat, Amira M. I. Mourad, Mohamed A. Abou-Zeid, Shamseldeen Eltaher, P. Stephen Baenziger, Andreas Börner

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Wheat stripe rust (caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici) is a major disease that damages wheat plants and affects wheat yield all over the world. In recent years, stripe rust became a major problem that affects wheat yield in Egypt. New races appeared and caused breakdowns in the resistant genotypes. To improve resistance in the Egyptian genotypes, new sources of resistance are urgently needed. In the recent research, a set of 95 wheat genotypes collected from 19 countries, including Egypt, were evaluated for their resistance against the Egyptian race(s) of stripe rust under field conditions in the two …

Relationships Among College-Level Science Course Enrollment, Environmental Perception, And Pro-Environmental Attitude: Evidence From The Us General Social Survey, Mazbahul G. Ahamad, Fahian Tanin

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Understanding pro-environmental attitudes is critical to encouraging pollution-minimizing behaviors. Therefore, identifying associated factors is essential for understanding different types of pro-environmental attitudes. We aimed to investigate the associations among individuals’ college-level science course enrollment and their perceptions of the level of spending to improve and protect the environment, as well as their pro-environmental attitudes. We used nationwide population-based cross-sectional survey data from 2,348 individuals obtained from the General Social Survey in the United States. An ordered logistic model was used to examine the associations among college-level science course enrollment, environmental perception, and pro-environmental attitude. We found that science course enrollment …

Cold Conditioned: Discovery Of Novel Alleles For Low-Temperature Tolerance In The Vavilov Barley Collection, Ahmad H. Sallam, Kevin P. Smith, Gongshe Hu, Jamie Sherman, Peter Stephen Baeziger, Jochum Wiersma, Carl Duley, Eric J. Stockinger, Mark E. Sorrells, Tamas Szinyei, Igor G. Loskutov, Olga N. Kovaleva, Jed Eberly, Brian J. Steffenson

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Climate changes leading to higher summer temperatures can adversely affect cool season crops like spring barley. In the Upper Midwest region of the United States, one option for escaping this stress factor is to plant winter or facultative type cultivars in the autumn and then harvest in early summer before the onset of high-temperature stress. However, the major challenge in breeding such cultivars is incorporating sufficient winter hardiness to survive the extremely low temperatures that commonly occur in this production region. To broaden the genetic base for winter hardiness in the University of Minnesota breeding program, 2,214 accessions from the …

Sustainable Intensification For A Larger Global Rice Bowl, Shen Yuan, Bruce A. Linquist, Lloyd T. Wilson, Kenneth G. Cassman, Alexander M. Stuart, Valerien Pede, Berta Miro, Kazuki Saito, Nurwulan Agustiani, Vina Eka Aristya, Leonardus Y. Krisnadi, Alencar Junior Zanon, Alexandre Bryan Heinemann, Gonzalo Carracelas, Nataraja Subash, Pathula S. Brahmanand, Tao Li, Shaobing Peng, Patricio Grassini

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Future rice systems must produce more grain while minimizing the negative environmental impacts. A key question is how to orient agricultural research & development (R&D) programs at national to global scales to maximize the return on investment. Here we assess yield gap and resource-use efficiency (including water, pesticides, nitrogen, labor, energy, and associated global warming potential) across 32 rice cropping systems covering half of global rice harvested area. We show that achieving high yields and high resource-use efficiencies are not conflicting goals. Most cropping systems have room for increasing yield, resource-use efficiency, or both. In aggregate, current total rice production …

Hyperseed: An End-To-End Method To Process Hyperspectral Images Of Seeds, Tian Gao, Anil Kumar Nalini Chandran, Puneet Paul, Harkamal Walia, Hongfeng Yu

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

High-throughput, nondestructive, and precise measurement of seeds is critical for the evaluation of seed quality and the improvement of agricultural productions. To this end, we have developed a novel end-to-end platform named HyperSeed to provide hyperspectral information for seeds. As a test case, the hyperspectral images of rice seeds are obtained from a high-performance line-scan image spectrograph covering the spectral range from 600 to 1700 nm. The acquired images are processed via a graphical user interface (GUI)-based open-source software for background removal and seed segmentation. The output is generated in the form of a hyperspectral cube and curve for each …

Climate And Agronomy, Not Genetics, Underpin Recent Maize Yield Gains In Favorable Environments, Gonzalo Rizzo, Juan Pablo Monzon, Fatima Amor Tenorio, Réka Howard, Kenneth G. Cassman, Patricio Grassini

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Quantitative understanding of factors driving yield increases of major food crops is essential for effective prioritization of research and development. Yet previous estimates had limitations in distinguishing among contributing factors such as changing climate and new agronomic and genetic technologies. Here, we distinguished the separate contribution of these factors to yield advance using an extensive database collected from the largest irrigated maize-production domain in the world located in Nebraska (United States) during the 2005-to-2018 period. We found that 48% of the yield gain was associated with a decadal climate trend, 39% with agronomic improvements, and, by difference, only 13% with …

Comparing Machine Learning Techniques With State-Of-The-Art Parametric Prediction Models For Predicting Soybean Traits, Susweta Ray

Department of Statistics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Work

Soybean is a significant source of protein and oil, and also widely used as animal feed. Thus, developing lines that are superior in terms of yield, protein and oil content is important to feed the ever-growing population. As opposed to the high-cost phenotyping, genotyping is both cost and time efficient for breeders while evaluating new lines in different environments (location-year combinations) can be costly. Several Genomic prediction (GP) methods have been developed to use the marker and environment data effectively to predict the yield or other relevant phenotypic traits of crops. Our study compares a conventional GP method (GBLUP), a …

Formation Of B Horizons In Engineered Putting Green Soils, Glen Obear

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

Engineered turfgrass putting green soils are designed to drain quickly, while maintaining adequate water- and nutrient-holding capacity to sustain plant growth. These soils are designed to meet specific performance characteristics when they are constructed, but the process of soil formation changes these characteristics over time. Chapter 1 of this dissertation is a literature review of soil formation in engineered putting green soils. Pedogenesis of putting greens is such that A horizons form as organic matter accumulates near the surface, and B horizons form as particles and solutes are translocated to textural or pH boundaries in soil profiles. In the engineered …

American Burying Beetle, Plant Richness, And Soil Property Responses To Collapse Of Juniperus Virginiana Woodlands With Fire, Alison Ludwig

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

Grasslands are declining in the Great Plains due to land use changes, woody plant encroachment, and loss of historic fire cycles. Prescribed burn associations have utilized prescribed fire to collapse invading woodlands and allow the restoration of grasslands. This fire is considered “extreme” because it is capable of changing the structure and function of an ecosystem. Our study site is the Loess Canyons Experimental Landscape, a long-term, ecoregion-scale experiment to apply prescribed fire across the region to restore grasslands. The Nebraska Natural Legacy Project established the Loess Canyons ecoregion as a Biologically-Unique Landscape in 2005 with the state’s wildlife action …

Intricacies In Agronomic Management: The Role Of Interdisciplinary Education, Adam M. Striegel

Doctor of Plant Health Program: Dissertations and Student Research

As a science, agronomy is built upon the connection of inter-disciplinary fields of study. Management (M) of various discipline considerations (and their subsequent interactions) can be influenced by and have significant effects on genetic by environment (GxE) expression. This has led to the promotion of GxExM systems. However, optimizing GxExM programs requires extensive, interdisciplinary knowledge. To evaluate interdisciplinary training provided in undergraduate education, 11 four-year universities were selected in the United States that offer baccalaureate degree majors in agronomy or crop science. Surveys of undergraduate programs of study were conducted, with all required coursework separated into general degree components (general …

The Impact Of Beneficial Organisms In Corn Agroecosystems, Callie Rosalind Braley

Doctor of Plant Health Program: Dissertations and Student Research

Corn is one of the world’s, and Nebraska’s, most important crops. Millions of acres are planted to corn each year in the Cornhusker State. However, each year there are a plethora of arthropod, weed, and microorganism pests that rob farmers of reaching their maximum yield potential. There are many options available to manage these pests in corn agroecosystems, but one option is often underutilized: beneficial organisms. For each pest, there are a variety of natural enemies that can assist in mitigating the damage caused by pests.

Many beneficial organisms exist, and they can be grouped by the type of pest …

Livestock Grazing Impacts On Crop And Soil Responses For Two Cropping Systems, Alyssa Kuhn

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

Diversified crop, forage, and livestock systems are assumed to be more sustainable and economically competitive than traditional cropping systems. Objectives of this study were to determine effects of integrating grazing livestock into corn (Zea mays)-soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) (C-S) and corn-soybean-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) (C-S-W) cropping systems on plant population, grain yield, soil nutrients and soil carbon dioxide (CO₂) flux following winter grazing corn residue (both systems) and an oat (Avena sativa) cover crop (C-S-W only) planted after wheat. For the 2019 and 2020 production seasons, neither corn nor soybean plant …

A Method For Visualizing Water Flow Through Modified Root Zones, Dallas M. Williams

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

As the number of impervious surfaces in urban environments increases, the ability of modified root zones to infiltrate water is becoming more important. Current methods of tracing water flow through soil profiles include excavating large pits in situ or analyzing soil cores in the laboratory with computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. While useful, these methods may not be suitable for urban settings or practical in every laboratory. We propose a new method that is less invasive, does not require extensive technical equipment and can reliably trace water movement through the soil profile in order to calculate flow rate based …

Seeding Rate Effects On Forage Mass And Vegetation Dynamics Of Cool-Season Grass Sod Interseeded With Sorghum-Sudangrass, John A. Guretzky, D. D. Redfearn

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Interseeding annual warm-season grasses into perennial cool-season grasses has the potential to increase summer forage mass and nutritive value. Knowledge of how seeding rate affects annual warm-season grass establishment, forage mass, and vegetation dynamics remains limited. From 2016–2017, we conducted a field experiment evaluating the effects of seeding rates on sorghum-sudangrass (Sorghum bicolor x S. bicolor var. sudanense) density and forage mass and on the frequency of occurrence of plant species in cool-season grass sod in Lincoln, NE. The experiment had a completely randomized design consisting of six replicates of four seeding rates [0, 14, 28, and 35 …

Impact Of Urbanization Trends On Production Of Key Staple Crops, José F. Andrade, Kenneth G. Cassman, Juan I. Rattalino Edreira, Fahmuddin Agus, Abdullahi Bala, Nanyan Deng, Patricio Grassini

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Urbanization has appropriated millions of hectares of cropland, and this trend will persist as cities continue to expand. We estimate the impact of this conversion as the amount of land needed elsewhere to give the same yield potential as determined by differences in climate and soil properties. Robust spatial upscaling techniques, well-validated crop simulation models, and soil, climate, and cropping system databases are employed with a focus on populous countries with high rates of land conversion. We find that converted cropland is 30–40% more productive than new cropland, which means that projection of food production potential must account for expected …

Influence Of Surfactant-Humectant Adjuvants On Physical Properties, Droplet Size, And Efficacy Of Glufosinate Formulations, Estefania G. Polli, Guilherme S. Alves, Jesaelen Gizotti De Moraes, Greg Robert Kruger

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Glufosinate efficacy is inconsistent among weed species and under environmental conditions that favor rapid droplet drying. Surfactant-humectant adjuvants could maximize glufosinate efficacy by increasing wetting and penetration into the leaf surface while decreasing evaporation rate (ER). However, there is a lack of information in the literature about the interaction of surfactant-humectants adjuvants with glufosinate. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of surfactanthumectant adjuvants on the physical properties, droplet size, and efficacy of two glufosinate formulations. Laboratory, greenhouse, and field studies were conducted at the Pesticide Application Technology Laboratory of the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Treatment design …

Prosopis Glandulosa Persistence Is Facilitated By Differential Protection Of Buds During Low- And High-Energy Fires, Heath D. Starns, Carissa L. Wonkka, Matthew B. Dickinson, Alexandra G. Lodge, Morgan L. Treadwell, Kathleen L. Kavanagh, Douglas R. Tolleson, Dirac L. Twidwell Jr, William E. Rogers

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Rangelands worldwide have experienced significant shifts from grass-dominated to woody-plant dominated states over the past century. In North America, these shifts are largely driven by overgrazing and landscape-scale fire suppression. Such shifts reduce productivity for livestock, can have broad-scale impacts to biodiversity, and are often difficult to reverse. Restoring grass dominance often involves restoring fire as an ecological process. However, many resprouting woody plants persist following disturbance, including fire, by resprouting from protected buds, rendering fire ineffective for reducing resprouting woody plant density. Recent research has shown that extreme fire (high-energy fires during periods of water stress) may reduce resprouting …

Genome-Wide Dna Polymorphism Analysis And Molecular Marker Development For The Setaria Italica Variety “Ssr41” And Positional Cloning Of The Setaria White Leaf Sheath Gene Siwls1, Hui Zhang, Sha Tang, James C. Schnable, Qiang He, Yuanzhu Gao, Mingzhao Luo, Guanqing Jia, Baili Feng, Hui Zhi, Xianmin Diao

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Genome-wide DNA polymorphism analysis and molecular marker development are important for forward genetics research and DNA marker-assisted breeding. As an ideal model system for Panicoideae grasses and an important minor crop in East Asia, foxtail millet (Setaria italica) has a high-quality reference genome as well as large mutant libraries based on the “Yugu1” variety. However, there is still a lack of genetic and mutation mapping tools available for forward genetics research on S. italica. Here, we screened another S. italica genotype, “SSR41”, which is morphologically similar to, and readily cross-pollinates with, “Yugu1”. High-throughput resequencing of “SSR41” …

A Chickpea Genetic Variation Map Based On The Sequencing Of 3,366 Genomes, Rajeev K. Varshney, Manish Roorkiwal, Shuai Sun, Prasad Bajaj, Annapurna Chitikineni, Mahendar Thudi, Narendra P. Singh, Xiao Du, Hari D. Upadhyaya, Diego Jarquin

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Zero hunger and good health could be realized by 2030 through effective conservation, characterization and utilization of germplasm resources1 . So far, few chickpea (Cicerarietinum) germplasm accessions have been characterized at the genome sequence level2 . Here we present a detailed map of variation in 3,171 cultivated and 195 wild accessions to provide publicly available resources for chickpea genomics research and breeding. We constructed a chickpea pan-genome to describe genomic diversity across cultivated chickpea and its wild progenitor accessions. A divergence tree using genes present in around 80% of individuals in one species allowed us to estimate the divergence of …

University Research On Winter Growing Of Container-Grown Strawberries Translates To Grower's Farm Trial, Stacy A. Adams, Ellen T. Paparozzi, Ryan Pekarek, Dave P. Lambe, George Meyer, M. Elizabeth Conley, Paul Read

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Strawberries are only seasonally available in Nebraska (NE). If an affordable heated structure can be designed, then opportunity exists to increase on-farm income by producing strawberries off-season during high-value market periods. A series of university greenhouse trials were conducted from 2010 to 2012. The varieties Evie-2 and Seascape were identified as being most productive under a low technology growing scheme. A new research project, which ran from fall to late spring (2013–2014), was designed to determine if this production scheme would translate to a commercial grower. Varieties Seascape and Evie-2 (each at two grades indicated by +) and San Andreas …

Control Of Acetolactate Synthase Inhibitor/Glyphosate-Resistant Palmer Amaranth (Amaranthus Palmeri) In Isoxaflutole/Glufosinate/Glyphosate-Resistant Soybean, Jasmine Mausbach, Suat Irmak, Debalin Sarangi, John L. Lindquist, Amit J. Jhala

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Palmer amaranth is the most problematic and troublesome weed in agronomic cropping systems in the United States. Acetolactate synthase (ALS) inhibitor and glyphosate-resistant (GR) Palmer amaranth has been confirmed in Nebraska and it is widespread in several counties. Soybean resistant to isoxaflutole/glufosinate/glyphosate has been developed that provides additional herbicide site of action for control of herbicide-resistant weeds. The objectives of this study were to evaluate herbicide programs for control of ALS inhibitor/GR Palmer amaranth and their effect on Palmer amaranth density and biomass, as well as soybean injury and yield in isoxaflutole/glufosinate/glyphosate-resistant soybean. Field experiments were conducted in a grower's …

Identification And Validation Of High Ld Hotspot Genomic Regions Harboring Stem Rust Resistant Genes On 1b, 2a (Sr38), And 7b Chromosomes In Wheat, Shamseldeen Eltaher, Amira M.I. Mourad, P Stephen Baenziger, Stephen Wegulo, Vikas Belamkar, Ahmed Sallam

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Stem rust caused by Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici Eriks. is an important disease of common wheat globally. The production and cultivation of genetically resistant cultivars are one of the most successful and environmentally friendly ways to protect wheat against fungal pathogens. Seedling screening and genome-wide association study (GWAS) were used to determine the genetic diversity of wheat genotypes obtained on stem rust resistance loci. At the seedling stage, the reaction of the common stem rust race QFCSC in Nebraska was measured in a set of 212 genotypes from F3:6 lines. The results indicated that 184 genotypes (86.8%) had different …

Spatial Frameworks For Robust Estimation Of Yield Gaps, Juan I. Rattalino Edreira, José F. Andrade, Kenneth G. Cassman, Martin K. Ittersum, Marloes P. Van Loon, Patricio Grassini

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Food security interventions and policies need reliable estimates of crop production and the scope to enhance production on existing cropland. Here we assess the performance of two widely used ‘top-down’ gridded frameworks (Global Agro-ecological Zones and Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project) versus an alternative ‘bottom-up’ approach (Global Yield Gap Atlas). The Global Yield Gap Atlas estimates extra production potential locally for a number of sites representing major breadbaskets and then upscales the results to larger spatial scales. We find that estimates from top-down frameworks are alarmingly unlikely, with estimated potential production being lower than current farm production at some …

Development Of A Genomic Prediction Pipeline For Maintaining Comparable Sample Sizes In Training And Testing Sets Across Prediction Schemes Accounting For The Genotype-By-Environment Interaction, Reyna Persa, Martin Grondona, Diego Jarquin

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

The global growing population is experiencing challenges to satisfy the food chain supply in a world that faces rapid changes in environmental conditions complicating the development of stable cultivars. Emergent methodologies aided by molecular marker information such as marker assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection (GS) have been widely adopted to assist the development of improved genotypes. In general, the implementation of GS is not straightforward, and it usually requires cross-validation studies to find the optimum set of factors (training set sizes, number of markers, quality control, etc.) to use in real breeding applications. In most cases, these different scenarios …

A Machine Learning Interpretation Of The Contribution Of Foliar Fungicides To Soybean Yield In The North‐Central United States, Denis A. Shah, Thomas R. Butts, Spyridon Mourtzinis, Juan I. Rattalino Edreira, Patricio Grassini, Shawn P. Conley, Paul D. Esker

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Foliar fungicide usage in soybeans in the north-central United States increased steadily over the past two decades. An agronomically-interpretable machine learning framework was used to understand the importance of foliar fungicides relative to other factors associated with realized soybean yields, as reported by growers surveyed from 2014 to 2016. A database of 2738 spatially referenced fields (of which 30% had been sprayed with foliar fungicides) was fit to a random forest model explaining soybean yield. Latitude (a proxy for unmeasured agronomic factors) and sowing date were the two most important factors associated with yield. Foliar fungicides ranked 7th out of …

Contributions Of Individual Cover Crop Species To Rainfed Maize Production In Semi-Arid Cropping Systems, Alexandre T. Rosa, Cody Creech, Roger W. Elmore, Daran Rudnick, John L. Lindquist, Liberty Butts, Italo K. Pinho De Faria, Rodrigo Werle

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Cover crop (CC) species selection can contribute to reducing soil penetration resistance (brassica species), improved soil nitrogen (N) cycling (legume species), and suppression of weeds (grass species). However, one of the main concerns about including CCs in water-limited environments is soil water use and the consequences to subsequent crops. To determine the effects of individual CC species under water-limited environments, we evaluated fall and spring CC biomass produced, and soil water and N content, penetration resistance, weed density and biomass during the maize growing season, and maize grain yield. The experiment was conducted under a winter wheat-maize-fallow rotation at two …

Implications Of Cover Crop Planting And Termination Timing On Rainfed Maize Production In Semi-Arid Cropping Systems, Alexandre T. Rosa, Cody Creech, Roger W. Elmore, Daran Rudnick, John L. Lindquist, Miguel Fudolig, Liberty E. Butts, Rodrigo Werle

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Despite the potential to increase soil organic matter, cycle soil nutrients, and suppress weeds, there is a concern that cover crops (CCs) soil water use negatively impacts subsequent crops in water-limited environments. Cover crop management practices such as planting and termination timing may mitigate the detrimental impacts of CCs in semi-arid cropping systems. To determine the effects of CCs under water-limited environments, we evaluated the total CC biomass produced in the fall and spring, soil water content during the subsequent maize growing season, weed density and biomass, crop residue, and soil nutrients at the maize V6 development stage, and maize …

Advancing Agricultural Research Using Machine Learning Algorithms, Spyridon Mourtzinis, Paul D. Esker, James E. Specht, Shawn P. Conley

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Rising global population and climate change realities dictate that agricultural productivity must be accelerated. Results from current traditional research approaches are difficult to extrapolate to all possible fields because they are dependent on specific soil types, weather conditions, and background management combinations that are not applicable nor translatable to all farms. A method that accurately evaluates the effectiveness of infinite cropping system interactions (involving multiple management practices) to increase maize and soybean yield across the US does not exist. Here, we utilize extensive databases and artificial intelligence algorithms and show that complex interactions, which cannot be evaluated in replicated trials, …

Final Selection Of Quality Protein Popcorn Hybrids, Leandra Parsons, Ying Ren, Abou Yobi, Ruthie Angelovici, Oscar Rodriguez, David R. Holding

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Quality Protein Popcorn (QPP) BC₂F₅ inbred lines were produced through an interpopulation breeding system between Quality Protein Maize dent (QPM) and elite popcorn germplasm. In 2019, five QPP F₁ hybrids were selected for further evaluation due to superior agronomics, endosperm protein quality, and popping quality traits. Though these BC₂F₅ QPP hybrids were phenotypically similar to their popcorn parents, the QPP cultivars conveyed slightly inferior popping characteristics when compared to the original popcorn germplasm. The objective of this study was twofold. First, BC₂F₅ inbred lines were crossed to their popcorn parents …