Plant Breeding and Genetics Commons^™

Production, Evaluation, And Selection Of Elite Quality Protein Popcorn (Qpp) Hybrids, Leandra Parsons

Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research in Agronomy and Horticulture

In 2017, twelve Quality Protein Popcorn (QPP) inbred lines were developed and selected as premier dent by popcorn crosses fit for hybridization and testing. These QPP inbred lines were derived from specific Quality Protein dent Maize (QPM) by ConAgra Brands® popcorn line crosses to produce high lysine, vitreous popcorn lines capable of near-equal popping characteristics compared to the original popcorn parents. The QPP hybridization project commenced in the summer of 2018 utilizing these 12 inbred QPP lines and crossing them in a full diallel. Since then, the production of QPP hybrids has employed a diverse set of selection factors evaluating ...

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 ...

Gwas And Wgcna Uncover Hub Genes Controlling Salt Tolerance In Maize (Zea Mays L.) Seedlings, Langlang Ma, Minyan Zhang, Jie Chen, Chunyan Qing, Shijiang He, Changying Zou, Guangsheng Yuan, Cong Yang, Hua Peng, Guangtang Pan, Thomas Lubberstedt, Yaou Shen

Agronomy Publications

Salt stress influences maize growth and development. To decode the genetic basis and hub genes controlling salt tolerance is a meaningful exploration for cultivating salt-tolerant maize varieties. Herein, we used an association panel consisting of 305 lines to identify the genetic loci responsible for Na+- and K+-related traits in maize seedlings. Under the salt stress, seven significant single nucleotide polymorphisms were identified using a genome-wide association study, and 120 genes were obtained by scanning the linkage disequilibrium regions of these loci. According to the transcriptome data of the above 120 genes under salinity treatment, we conducted a weighted gene ...

Seed Rain–Successional Feedbacks In Wet Tropical Forests, Nohemi Huanca Nuñez, Robin L. Chazdon, Sabrina E. Russo

Faculty Publications in the Biological Sciences

Abstract

Tropical forest regeneration after abandonment of former agricultural land depends critically on the input of tree seeds, yet seed dispersal is increasingly disrupted in contemporary human-modified landscapes. Here, we introduce the concept of seed rain–successional feedbacks as a deterministic process in which seed rain is shaped by successional dynamics internal to a forest site and that acts to reinforce priority effects. We used a combination of time series and chronosequence approaches to investigate how the quantity and taxonomic and functional composition of seed rain change during succession and to evaluate the strength of seed rain–successional feedbacks, relative ...

Interdisciplinary Strategies To Enable Data-Driven Plant Breeding In A Changing Climate, Aaron Kusmec, Zihao Zheng, Sotirios Archontoulis, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Guiping Hu, Lizhi Wang, Jianming Yu, Patrick S. Schnable

Mechanical Engineering Publications

This perspective lays out a framework to enable the breeding of crops that can meet worldwide demand under the challenges of global climate change. Past work in various fields has produced multiple prediction methods to contribute to different plant breeding objectives. Our proposed framework focuses on the integration of these methods into decision-support tools that quantify the effects on multiple objectives of decisions made throughout the plant breeding pipeline. We discuss the complementarities among these methods with an emphasis on integration into tools that utilize operations research and systems approaches to help plant breeders rapidly and optimally design new cultivars ...

The Look Ahead Trace Back Optimizer For Genomic Selection Under Transparent And Opaque Simulators, Fatemeh Amini, Felipe Restrepo Franco, Guiping Hu, Lizhi Wang

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering Publications

Recent advances in genomic selection (GS) have demonstrated the importance of not only the accuracy of genomic prediction but also the intelligence of selection strategies. The look ahead selection algorithm, for example, has been found to significantly outperform the widely used truncation selection approach in terms of genetic gain, thanks to its strategy of selecting breeding parents that may not necessarily be elite themselves but have the best chance of producing elite progeny in the future. This paper presents the look ahead trace back algorithm as a new variant of the look ahead approach, which introduces several improvements to further ...

Arkansas Cotton Variety Test 2020, F. Bourland, A. Beach, E. Brown, C. Kennedy, L. Martin, B. Robertson

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

The primary goal of the Arkansas Cotton Variety Test is to provide unbiased data regarding the agronomic performance of cotton varieties and advanced breeding lines in the major cotton-growing areas of Arkansas. This information helps seed companies establish marketing strategies and assists producers in choosing varieties to plant. These annual evaluations will then facilitate the inclusion of new, improved genetic material in Arkansas cotton production. Adaptation of varieties is determined by evaluating the lines at five University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture research sites (Manila, Keiser, Judd Hill, Marianna, and Rohwer). Entries in the 2020 Arkansas Cotton Variety Test ...

Direct Agroinoculation Of Maize Seedlings By Injection With Recombinant Foxtail Mosaic Virus And Sugarcane Mosaic Virus Infectious Clones, Bliss M. Beernink, Katerina L. Holan, Ryan R. Lappe, Steven A. Whitham

Plant Pathology and Microbiology Publications

Agrobacterium-based inoculation approaches are widely used for introducing viral vectors into plant tissues. This study details a protocol for the injection of maize seedlings near meristematic tissue with Agrobacterium carrying a viral vector. Recombinant foxtail mosaic virus (FoMV) clones engineered for gene silencing and gene expression were used to optimize this method, and its use was expanded to include a recombinant sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) engineered for gene expression. Gene fragments or coding sequences of interest are inserted into a modified, infectious viral genome that has been cloned into the binary T-DNA plasmid vector pCAMBIA1380. The resulting plasmid constructs ...

Chile Pepper Variety Evaluation At Four Sites Across Minnesota And Wisconsin, 2020, Charlie Rohwer, Natalie Hoidal, Cala Farm, Agua Gorda Farm Cooperative, Jarl's Produce

Midwest Vegetable Trial Reports

Latinx fresh market vegetable farmers in Minnesota face numerous barriers to market access. Many Latinx farmers live in rural communities where farmers market sales are low, and opportunities for wholesale are limited. The growers who make up Shared Ground Farmers’ Cooperative have developed an innovative cooperative marketing system to aggregate produce and sell it in Twin Cities markets, but many of the individual farmers involved also wish to find ways to keep the produce they grow in their own communities. This project emerged through a series of discussions about finding niche markets for culturally relevant crops in small-town Mexican restaurants ...

A Comparison Of Media To Determine Optimal Growth In Aquaponics: Prg Virtual Showcase January 2021, Rachel L. Fogle, Andrea Nagy, Claribel Asare, Steven Berry, Jordan Brown, Aquila Durham-Lewis

Presidential Research Grants

No abstract provided.

Lengthening Of Maize Maturity Time Is Not A Widespread Climate Change Adaptation Strategy In The Us Midwest, Lori J. Abendroth, Fernando E. Miguez, Michael J. Castellano, Paul R. Carter, Carlos D. Messina, Philip M. Dixon, Jerry L. Hatfield

Agronomy Publications

Increasing temperatures in the US Midwest are projected to reduce maize yields because warmer temperatures hasten reproductive development and, as a result, shorten the grain fill period. However, there is widespread expectation that farmers will mitigate projected yield losses by planting longer season hybrids that lengthen the grain fill period. Here, we ask: (a) how current hybrid maturity length relates to thermal availability of the local climate, and (b) if farmers are shifting to longer season hybrids in response to a warming climate. To address these questions, we used county‐level Pioneer brand hybrid sales (Corteva Agriscience) across 17 years ...

72-H Diurnal Rna-Seq Analysis Of Fully Expanded Third Leaves From Maize, Sorghum, And Foxtail Millet At 3-H Resolution, Xianjun Lai, Claire Bendix, Yan Zhang, James Schnable, Frank G. Harmon

Faculty Publications from the Center for Plant Science Innovation

Objectives: The purpose of this data set is to capture the complete diurnal (i.e., daily) transcriptome of fully expanded third leaves from the C4 panacoid grasses sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), maize (Zea mays), and foxtail millet (Setaria italica) with RNA-seq transcriptome profiling. These data are the cornerstone of a larger project that examined the conservation and divergence of gene expression networks within these crop plants. This data set focuses on tem- poral changes in gene expression to identify the network architecture responsible for daily regulation of plant growth and metabolic activities. The power of this data set is fine temporal ...

Parallel And Intertwining Threads Of Domestication In Allopolyploid Cotton, Daojun Yuan, Corrinne E. Grover, Guanjing Hu, Mengqiao Pan, Emma R. Miller, Justin L. Conover, Spencer P. Hunt, Joshua A. Udall, Jonathan F. Wendel

Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology Publications

The two cultivated allopolyploid cottons, Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense, represent a remarkable example of parallel independent domestication, both involving dramatic morphological transformations under selection from wild perennial plants to annualized row crops. Deep resequencing of 643 newly sampled accessions spanning the wild‐to‐domesticated continuum of both species, and their allopolyploid relatives, are combined with existing data to resolve species relationships and elucidate multiple aspects of their parallel domestication. It is confirmed that wild G. hirsutum and G. barbadense were initially domesticated in the Yucatan Peninsula and NW South America, respectively, and subsequently spread under domestication over 4000–8000 ...

Arkansas Corn And Grain Sorghum Performance Tests 2020, J. F. Carlin, R. D. Bond, R. B. Morgan

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Corn and grain sorghum performance tests are conducted each year in Arkansas by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. The tests provide information to companies marketing seed within the state and aid the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in formulating recommendations for producers.

The 2020 corn performance tests contained 85 hybrids and were conducted at the Northeast Research and Extension Center (NEREC) at Keiser, the Lon Mann Cotton Research Station (LMCRS) near Marianna, the Bell Farming Company (BFC) near Des Arc, the Pine Tree Research Station (PTRS) near Colt, the Rohwer Research Station (RRS) near Rohwer, and the Rice ...

Arkansas Soybean Performance Tests 2020, J. F. Carlin, R. D. Bond, R. B. Morgan

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

Soybean variety and strain performance tests are conducted each year in Arkansas by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s Arkansas Crop Variety Improvement Program. The tests provide information to companies developing varieties and/or marketing seed within the State, and aid the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in formulating variety recommendations for soybean producers.

Exploring Quantitative Trait Loci Mapping For Bud Fruitfulness And Bud Break Traits In Grapevine F2 Population, Seyma Bozkus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera) is one of the most important and valuable fruit crops around the world and grape industries in the USA have been growing increasingly regarding the demand for highly productive and quality grapes that can be grown in the cold region around the USA. The development of new cultivars with these features is performed through grape breeding with the help of quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, marker-assisted selection (MAS), and and other technologies. In this study, we evaluated grapevine bud fruitfulness by position and bud break in controlled conditions. These traits are multi-genetic and understanding ...

A Sugarcane Mosaic Virus Vector For Rapid In Planta Screening Of Proteins That Inhibit The Growth Of Insect Herbivores, Seung Ho Chung, Mahdiyeh Bigham, Ryan R. Lappe, Barry Chan, Ugrappa Nagalakshmi, Steven A. Whitham, Savithramma P. Dinesh-Kumar, Georg Jander

Plant Pathology and Microbiology Publications

Spodoptera frugiperda (fall armyworm) is a notorious pest that threatens maize production worldwide. Current control measures involve the use of chemical insecticides and transgenic maize expressing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins. Although additional transgenes have confirmed insecticidal activity, limited research has been conducted in maize, at least partially due to the technical difficulty of maize transformation. Here, we describe implementation of a sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) vector for rapidly testing the efficacy of both endogenous maize genes and heterologous genes from other organisms for the control of S. frugiperda in maize. Four categories of proteins were tested using the SCMV vector ...

Examining The Utility Of Dna Barcodes For The Identification Of Tallgrass Prairie Flora, Sarah A. Herzog, Maribeth Latvis

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Premise
The tallgrass prairies of North America are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, making efficient species identification essential for understanding and managing diversity. Here, we assess DNA barcoding with high‐throughput sequencing as a method for rapid plant species identification.
Methods
Using herbarium collections representing the tallgrass prairie flora of Oak Lake Field Station, South Dakota, USA, we amplified and examined four common nuclear and plastid barcode regions (ITS, matK, psbA‐trnH, and rbcL), individually and in combination, to test their success in identifying samples to family, genus, and species levels using BLAST searches of three ...

Identification Of Loci Influencing Teosinte Crossing Barrier 1 (Tcb1) Efficacy In Maize By Quantitative Trait Loci (Qtl) Mapping And Genome-Wide Association Study (Gwas), Namrata Maharjan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pollen cross-contamination has been a major problem for maize breeders. Various mechanical methods applied to avoid the contaminations are ineffective. The genetic factors related to maize fertilization can be used to develop an effective method to prevent pollen contamination. Pollen rejection ability controlled by Teosinte crossing barrier 1 (Tcb1) is such a genetic system. Silks possessing dominant Tcb1-s reject pollen possessing the recessive allele (tcb1). Successful fertilization occurs when Tcb1-s pollen falls upon tcb1 silks. The efficacy of dominant Tcb1-s was, however, reduced when repeatedly backcross with maize inbred lines, which suggests that there are modifiers to Tcb1-s. To find ...

Genome Wide Association Study On Kernel Size In Avena Sativa (Oats), Koryne Ann Carlson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kernel size is a vital milling characteristic for Avena sativa L. (oats), with larger kernel size being desirable for milling facilities. This project evaluated the effect of genotype, environment, and their genotype by environment interaction (G by E) on kernel width, length, and area for a set of 27 oat cultivars grown at multiple locations in South Dakota over three years. Findings indicated significant differences among oat varieties, and that environment had a substantial effect on kernel size. However, we did not see a strong influence of genotype by environment interaction on kernel size. The lack of impact for genotype ...