Plant Breeding and Genetics Commons^™

Plant Diversity In Laos, And Its Strategic Significance For Building China-Laos Community With A Shared Future For Biodiversity, Meng Honghu, Bo Li, Wenbin Yu, Yaowu Xing

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Laos is the first country to sign the bilateral cooperation document for construction of the community with a shared future with China. Over the years, Laos and China have established clear directions for cooperation in politics, economy, security, culture, and ecology, opening a new chapter in the development of China-Laos relations. At present, global environmental governance is facing severe challenges, and the biodiversity loss has become a major international issue of growing concern. Nevertheless, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development remain relatively limited. Laos shares a boarder with China and is characterized by complex natural environments with rich plant resource. Yet, …

Can Generative Ai Make Farming Decisions? Current Status And Future Pathways: A Case Study In Row Crop Production With Chatgpt, Nipuna Chamara, Yufeng Ge, Joe Luck, Yu Pan, Saleh Taghvaeian, Cory Walters, Christopher Proctor, Daran Rudnick, Daren Redfearn

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The agricultural decision-making process is experience-based, knowledge-dependent, time-sensitive, complex, and driven by historical data. Planting, fertilization, irrigation, and chemigation are key categories in farm decision-making, and currently there is no one-shot decision-support tool that covers all these activities. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are more advanced than traditional machine learning and deep learning models. These models have been trained on vast amounts of data from the internet, allowing them to accept unstructured data in various forms and generate human-like text, solutions to problems, and scenario predictions. Given this capability, we became interested in exploring the potential of generative AI in …

Artificial Light At Night Can Worsen Competitive Outcomes Between Native And Invasive Grasses, Shannon M. Murphy, Kylee Grenis, Anna A. Sher

Biological Sciences: Faculty Scholarship

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is an important global disturbance that affects community dynamics, but how it affects species interactions, such as competition, is not well understood and needs investigation. In plant communities, some exotic-invasive plant species seem to be facilitated by ALAN, which may alter competitive outcomes with native plant communities and promote invasion. Despite these intriguing results, whether ALAN affects competitive outcomes between native and invasive species is understudied. Here we tested how ALAN affects competitive outcomes between two native prairie grasses and two grasses that are exotic-invasive in North America. We planted each native species with a …

Use Of High-Throughput Phenomics With And Without Fungicide As A Wheat Breeding Tool, Gerardo Ivan Rivera Collazo

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is an important food staple for many countries around the world and current consumption and production data demonstrate a production deficit. Breeders are challenged to help close this gap in production by selecting better cultivars with improved yields. Several methods aim to accelerate the breeding process to reduce the time required for releasing an elite variety. One of the main breeding bottlenecks is the lack of fast and reliable phenotypic data acquisition that could dissect physiological and morphological plant data. High-throughput remote sensing could have the potential to reduce this bottleneck by streamlining data acquisition, …

Leveraging Historical Data For Estimating Genetic Gain And Implementing Genomic Selection In A Student Led Barley Breeding Program, Sydney Graham

Department of Statistics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In Nebraska, winter feed barley presents an emerging market for producers and an opportunity to diversify cropping systems. The University of Nebraska Barley Breeding Program aims to develop high-yielding, winter-hardy varieties. A unique aspect of this program is that doctoral students serve as barley breeders and are responsible for crossing, data collection, and advancement decisions. While this provides hands-on experience for the students, the impact of student leadership has not been examined.

This study used a historical data set to evaluate the realized genetic gain of the breeding program, and as a training population for genomic selection. The dataset consisted …

Technological Bottlenecks And Innovative Developments For Rubber Tree Breeding In China, Yongshuai Sun, Weimin Tian, Deli Zhai, Yongping Yang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Superior varieties of rubber trees are crucial elements in achieving stable production and supply of natural rubber. In China, rubber tree planting areas are situated at the northern edga of the world’s tropical zone and thus belong to non-traditional rubber tree planting areas with climatic conditions inferior to the traditional ones in Southeast Asia. The planted rubber trees are frequently damaged by low temperatures and diseases. Therefore, an urgent need in natural rubber production is to develop varieties with highyield potential and strong stress-tolerance. The scarcity of such varieties is mainly ascribed to the highly heterozygous genome, a long juvenile …

Development And Issues Of Biotech Seed Industry In China, Peijuan Chi, Hualing Xie, Ping Zhao, Fang Chen, Ning Wu, Zhixi Tian, Weicai Yang, Yanping Yang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Biotech seed industry is a strategic core industry. Biotechnology combined with digital technology has promoted the seed industry into an intelligent era, and the breeding paradigm has changed from “experimental selection” to “computational selection”. Biotech seed industry has become a research and development intensive industry, and the market is highly concentrated, which is controlled by large multinational enterprises. The scientific and technological output of China and the United States is in the first echelon, and the number of papers and authorized patents ranks among the top two in the world. From the perspective of core competitiveness, the United States is …

Evaluation Of Early Maturing Cultivars, Optimal Harvest Timing, And Canopy Reflectance Of Peanut To Maximize Grade And Yield, Joseph Bryan Whittenton

Theses and Dissertations

Peanut digging timing is difficult to predict due to indeterminate growth and peanut pods maturing underground, resulting in the need to research methods that provide consistent measurements, while reducing time and effort for farmers and researchers. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the accuracy of the Maturity Index 1 and Maturity Index 2 in predicting peanut grade, the accuracy of the North Carolina 2 degree day method in predicting peanut yield, and remote sensing vegetative indices sensitivity equivalence (SEq) to peanut Maturity Index 2 and harvest grade (TSMK) for cultivars IPG-914 and Georgia-06G in Mississippi.

Maturity Index 1 and …

Arkansas Fresh-Market Blackberries: Identifying Unique Attributes And Harvest Practices That Impact Marketability, Andrea Lea Myers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fresh-market blackberries (Rubus subgenus Rubus) are sold worldwide and have attributes that appeal to consumers. The delicate-nature of the fruit requires hand harvesting, and minimal handling of the fruit postharvest. Objectives of this research on Arkansas fresh-market blackberries was to 1) identify the unique attributes 2) determine the best handling practices to increase postharvest quality, and 3) evaluate the potential of soft robotic gripper for harvesting. For the first objective, blackberry genotypes were harvested from the University of Arkansas System (UA System) Division of Agriculture Fruit Research Station in Clarksville, AR. Nineteen genotypes were harvested in 2020, eight genotypes were …

Keeping What You Sow: Intellectual Property Rights For Plant Breeders And Seed Growers, Paulina B. Jenney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Over the last 150 years, the food system in the present-day United States has undergone a transformational restructuring, from a diversified, decentralized, network of farmers and seed growers, to one in which the majority of crop production is controlled by a few industrial corporations. The consolidation of power has been under-girded by the application of intellectual property rights (IPR)—especially utility patents—to plant varieties and genetic traits, which are leveraged to exclude small-scale seed growers from accessing quality germplasm. Patents and restrictive licensing agreements recapitulate colonial structures by appropriating common and traditionally community-held resources for profit, and by creating reliance on …

Rice From Paddy To Pantry To Plate: Mitigating Rice Blast Disease With Saponins Of Medicago, Improving Shelf Life With Crispr, And Exploring Global Cuisine Through Text Analysis, Kathryn Haydon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rice is the staple food for more than half the world’s population, with nearly 500 million metric tons of rice consumed globally every year. Any risk of loss due to disease, waste, or spoilage is therefore noteworthy. This dissertation explores the passage of rice from paddy to pantry to plate, with special attention given to disease and storage life. The most important disease of rice is blast, caused by the ascomycete Magnaporthe oryzae, which can cause losses of ~30% every year. This study found that saponin-enriched root extracts of Medicago truncatula effectively kill fungal spores in vitro and reduce moderate …

The Importance Of A Multidisciplinary Approach To Public Health: Addressing Food Insecurity Through A Biological And Sociological Lens, Chloe Grant

Honors Theses

Plants can sense the change of 1 ^oC in their growth environment and thus global climate change has a great impact on plant growth and development. The phenomenon that warm non-stress temperatures promote stem and petiole elongation, as well as leaf hyponastic growth, is collectively known as thermomorphogenesis. While it is known that the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor PIF4 is highly inducible by temperature elevations and controls thermomorphogenesis in dicots (e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana), the molecular mechanism underlying thermomorphogenetic growth in monocots is not clear. In this study, I identify PIF4 orthologs in several economically important monocotyledonous species and …

Sustainability Of Genetically Modified (Gm) Crops, Abdul Hakeem, Wajid Ali Shah

CBER Conference

This proposal identifies the methods used in the modification of crops, their production, modification, expansion, benefits, and carbon emission. Moreover, the special focus of this proposal is to explain the need for GM crops for developing nations which are witnessing exponential growth of their populations. Additionally, it pursues to determine how in the environmental and economic context, the significance of GM crops is overwhelming and cannot be overlooked. The greenhouse ePect reduction is the other essential output of the GM crops as shown through the illustrations.

The Virome Of Peony And The Population Structure Of Its Most Prominent Viruses, Cullen Shaffer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peony (Peonia lactiflora, Pall.) is a popular ornamental that has been cultivated for millennia. Due to its popularity, plant material is frequently moved across international borders allowing for the spread of viruses. The virome of several peony plants was investigated and four viruses; namely Amazon lily mild mottle virus (ALiMMV), Cycas necrotic stunt virus (CNSV), Gentian Kobu-sho associated virus (GKaV) and Lychnis mottle virus (LycMoV) were detected for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. Incidence ranged from a few plants for ALiMMV to near universal infection for CNSV. GKaV was found in individuals that were infected with Lemoine’s disease …

An Evaluation Of Unmanned Aircraft Systems' Ability To Assess Stripe Rust In Large Wheat Breeding Nursies, Jamison T. Murry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stripe Rust (Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici) is a foliar disease that significantly impacts global wheat production, and resistant cultivars provide the most efficient method of control. High-throughput phenotyping using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) offers a potentially more efficient method for field-based phenotyping compared to visual assessment. Here we tested the ability of remote sensing to predict stripe rust severity in a diverse population of 594 soft red winter wheat lines, planted in single-rows, and evaluated them by visually rating stripe rust intensity and remotely using the dark green color index (DGCI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and blue NDVI. …

Room To Grow: A Comparative Analysis Of Cannabis Regulation Models In Europe, Amanda H. Cronin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Debilitated by years of economic instability, the Spanish economy has not fully rebounded to its once strong place in the European market. And now, in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic, the nation will be searching for new sources of wealth. The lucrative market potential of controlled cannabis in medicinal and recreational settings is an attractive industry gaining popularity across Europe. This paper explores the various policy models and legal systems in Portugal, Germany, and the Netherlands. Combining a variety of sources, I seek to ascertain the best plan for Spain. Ultimately, analysis shows that a multi-pronged approach is the …

Yardwork: A Biography Of An Urban Place By Daniel Coleman, Vivian M. Hansen

The Goose

Review of Daniel Coleman's Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place.

The Taxonomy, Reproduction, And Distribution Of Rare Plants: A Study Of Magnolia Sp. In The Río Zuñac Reserve, Ecuador, Alyssa Kullberg

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Ecuadorian cloud forests are biodiversity hotspots and centers of unprecedented levels of endemism, but they are also under-researched and under-protected. This study took place in the Río Zuñac Reserve, which is a reserve of about 850 ha located in the Tungurahua province of Ecuador, and is home to at least 20 endemic plant species. Three new species of Magnolia have been discovered in this reserve in the past five years: Magnolia llanganates, Magnolia vargasiana, and one species that has yet to be formally described. This study dealt with accurately locating and describing new individuals of these species over the …

Dawn Or Doom: The Risks And Rewards Of Emerging Technologies, Diana Hancock, Steve Tally, Gerry Mccartney, Michele Arthur

Purdue P-12 Networking Summit & Poster Session

Dawn or Doom is a free and open to the public conference at Purdue where we focus on benefits and risks surrounding some of the technologies that are both the most disruptive to current practices and being adopted the fastest. A collection of Purdue faculty experts and some outside speakers showcase their many perspectives related to this technology explosion, explore conditions that will foster innovation and investment into the next generation, and address the big-picture issues where both optimism and pessimism are warranted.

Consumer Acceptance And Willingness To Pay For Genetically Modified Rice In China: A Double Bounded Dichotomous Choic Contingent Valuation Survey Calibrated By Cheap Talk, Jing Jin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Considering population growth, limitations on land and water resources, and contamination to the ecosystem due to agricultural activities, current rice production in China is facing pressure to fulfill national demand. Self-sufficiency of rice has been a long-held political objective of the Chinese government and it is national goal to maintain the equilibrium between the national production and consumption or even achieve a supply surplus in rice. With the developing bio-technology of genetic modification (GM), scientists believe that using genetically modified cultivars may ease the pressure mentioned above. However, both the government and the people are very cautious about large-scale cultivation …

College Students’ Perceptions Regarding Sensory Aspects Of Conventionally Produced And Unconventionally Produced Foods: Implications For Marketing To The Millennial Generation, Christina Crowder, Catherine W. Shoulders, K. Jill Rucker

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Consumers vote every day on which products line the shelves of grocery stores, co-ops, and niche markets. Public unrest with regard to the environmental, animal welfare, food purity, and human health impacts of agricultural production practices have led to the rise of unconventionally produced (UP) food products. While the sales of UP foods is increasing, studies regarding the qualities of such products that impact consumer purchases have yielded inconsistent results. This study examined students’ perceptions of sensory aspects of conventionally produced (CP) and UP foods to better understand how sensory aspects impact decisions to purchase. Students reported consistent perceptions regarding …

Implementing Green Roofs On Movie Theaters And Shopping Centers: Business Cases In Profitable Sustainability, Ryan J. Miller

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis presents the business case for installing green roofs on movie theaters and shopping centers. These businesses can then derive increased profits from the environmental benefits of reduced energy use and increased stormwater retention. After presenting the basic design and benefits of a green roof, the thesis develops stand-alone business plans for a movie theater and shopping center. The author finds that green roofs are a profitable sustainability solution for the commercial enterprise.

Final Evaluation Of The North East Agricultural Region (Near) Strategy, Andrew Blake, Don Burnside, Vicki Williams

All other publications

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Natural Plant Communities Through Crop Migration And Crop-To-Weed Gene Flow, Meredith G. Schafer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the rising demand for food and biofuels, the efficiency of crop production has become vital to assuring food security. Genetically engineered (GE) crop varieties are broadly thought to be a solution for improving the efficiency of crop production, but concerns regarding their release have heightened as more discoveries have focused on the influence of genetically engineered crops on native and weedy plant species. Risk assessment of GE crop varieties focuses on two main areas: feralization of crop systems and crop-weed hybridization. Risks include naturalization, transgene introgression, and the formation of novel genotypes in natural systems. In this study, roadside …

Superweeds And Suspect Seeds: Does The Genetically-Engineered Crop Deregulation Process Put American Agriculture At Risk, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

The federal government’s regulatory approach to genetically engineered (GE) crops, known as “The Framework”, is now twenty-five years old. Despite two and half decades of a consistent regulatory regime, GE crop and food regulation remains controversial. This article suggests that regulatory science and its tenets of independence, transparency, and public science should guide reforms of The Framework so that it is an efficient and reliable regulatory system. The article has four parts: 1) it provides a brief overview of the history of GE crop regulation; 2)it describes the key attributes of The Framework and related regulatory documents, with particular focus …

Development And Application Of Methods Used To Source Prehistoric Southwestern Maize: A Review, Larry Benson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Archaeological cobs free of mineral contaminants should be used to source the soils in which they were grown. Mineral contaminants often contain much higher concentrations of metals than vegetal materials and can alter a cob’s apparent metal and heavy-isotope content. Cleaning a cob via immersion in an acid solution for more than a few minutes will result in the incongruent and sometimes complete leaching of metals, including strontium (Sr), from the cob. When using ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr to determine the location of potential agriculture fields, it is best to either integrate several depth-integrated soil samples or to integrate several …

A Novel Gene Silencing Vector For Plant Genomics And Biotechnology, Dustin Hoover, Scott Nicholson, Vibha Srivastava

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Gene silencing is a process of suppressing activity of specific genes by producing “interfering” RNA encoded by foreign genes. This process serves as the principle of genetic modification in plants and animals, which is an important tool in genomics and biotechnology, allowing scientists to manipulate organisms to better meet human demands. New approaches of gene silencing may enable improvements on current practices of genetic modification, and broaden the application and impact of gene silencing in biotechnology. Recently, a novel vector design consisting of the transcription of short gene fragments lacking transcription termination signals was demonstrated to be effective in partial …

Molecular And Phenotypic Comparisons Of Salt Effects On Soybean Cultivars With Differential Chloride Uptake Capacities, Sharon Faye Holifield, Fernando Ledesma Rodriguez, Richard D. Cartwright, Pengyin Chen, Kenneth Korth

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Genetic manipulation of crop plants, through breeding or transgenic approaches, for enhanced tolerance to abiotic stress holds great promise for improving yields and promoting new methods for sustainable agriculture. This study examines the potential role that genes of the soybean, Glycine max L., encoding elongation factor-1 alpha (EF-1α) and glyoxalase I (GlxI) might play in response to salt stress. Previous reports have suggested a possible function for both GlxI and EF-1α in conferring enhanced salt tolerance in other plant species. In addition to other possible mechanisms, salt tolerance in soybeans can be regulated by plant uptake and transport of chloride …

The Green Revolution Of The 1960'S And Its Impact On Small Farmers In India, Kathryn Sebby

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

The Green Revolution was initiated in the 1960’s to address the issue of malnutrition in the developing world. The technology of the Green Revolution involved bio-engineered seeds that worked in conjunction with chemical fertilizers and heavy irrigation to increase crop yields. The technology was readily adopted in many stated in India and for some was a great success. However, there were many farmers who could not afford the inputs necessary to participate in the Green Revolution and gaps between social classes widened as wealthy farmers got wealthier and poor farmers lagged behind. This paper discusses how small farmers were affected …

Evaluation Of Cauliflower And Broccoli Varieties: Summer Planting (November 2005 - February 2006), Department Of Food And Agriculture, Western Australia

Horticulture research reports

This document has been prepared from a cauliflower and broccoli variety evaluation trial conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute, South Western Highway, Manjimup WA 6258. The results reflect the growth characteristics, yield, quality and density of the cauliflower and broccoli varieties as recorded at this site during the conditions of the growing period (November 2005 to February 2006).

This report is the first in a series of four produced from the evaluation of cauliflower and broccoli varieties conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute.

The results are provided to allow seed suppliers, seedling nurseries, producers, packers and marketers to …