BREAD: Improving Water Acquisition in Maize with Root Traits that Reduce the Metabolic Cost of Soil Exploration

PI：Jonathan Lynch(宾夕法尼亚州立大学)共同PIs：凯瑟琳·布朗(宾夕法尼亚州立大学)，Shawn Kaeppler(威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校)，George Kanyama-Phiri(马拉维本达农业学院)高级人员：摩西·马利罗(马拉维本达农业学院)干旱是发展中国家农作物生产的主要制约因素。开发耐旱玉米品种将是对这些地区粮食安全的重要贡献。该项目的总体目标是识别和表征具有扩张根皮质通风组织(RCA)特征的玉米品种，这种特征已被证明可以增强从土壤中获得水分和养分。该项目将表征美国和非洲玉米种质的RCA性状的生理表型，对RCA性状进行遗传作图，并通过田间站和田间试验评估南部非洲的选定玉米品种。非洲的这种农业生态学研究将评估RCA与养分获取、径向养分运输、菌根定植和对根部病原体的敏感性之间的潜在相互作用。除了干旱，RCA还可能增加对限制土壤养分的获取，如磷和氮。确定和了解增强抗旱性的特征对发展中国家的小农农业非常重要。该项目将提供经过生理验证的表型性状、种质资源和分子标记，可应用于玉米抗旱育种计划。该项目包括与非洲和拉丁美洲的植物育种者合作，以确保联系起来并将成果转让给小农。在培训方面，将为宾夕法尼亚州立大学和威斯康星大学的本科生课程开发关于非洲农业的案例研究。项目成果将通过美国农业部-美国农业部国家植物种质系统(http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs)，)、玉米遗传和基因组数据库MaizeGDB(http://www.maizegdb.org)，)和育种者外展网站(英语、法语、葡萄牙语和西班牙语(http://roots.psu.edu/?q=en/methods).))获得项目成果

PI: Jonathan Lynch (Pennsylvania State University)Co-PIs: Kathleen Brown (Pennsylvania State University), Shawn Kaeppler (University of Wisconsin-Madison), George Kanyama-Phiri (Bunda College of Agriculture, Malawi)Senior Personnel: Moses Maliro (Bunda College of Agriculture, Malawi)Drought is a primary constraint to crop production in developing countries. Development of drought tolerant maize varieties will be an important contribution to food security in these regions. The overall goal of the project is to identify and characterize maize varieties with expanded root cortical aerenchyma (RCA) traits, which has been shown to enhance water and nutrient acquisition from soil. The project will characterize the physiological phenotypes of RCA traits from US and African maize germplasm, genetically map the RCA traits, and evaluate selected maize varieties in southern Africa in field stations and through on-farm trials. Such agroecological study in Africa will assess potential RCA trait interactions with nutrient acquisition, radial nutrient transport, mycorrhizal colonization, and susceptibility to root pathogens. In addition to drought, RCA may also enhance acquisition of limiting soil nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen. Defining and understanding traits enhancing drought tolerance is of great importance to smallholder agriculture in developing countries. This project will provide physiologically validated phenotypic traits, germplasm sources, and molecular markers that can be applied in maize breeding programs towards drought tolerance. The project includes collaboration with plant breeders in Africa and Latin American to ensure connection and transfer of outcomes to smallholder farmers. With respect to training, case studies on African agriculture will be developed for undergraduate courses at the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Wisconsin.Access to project outcomesProject outcomes will be accessible through the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System (http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs), the Maize Genetics and Genomics Database MaizeGDB (http://www.maizegdb.org), and an outreach web site to breeders which is available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish (http://roots.psu.edu/?q=en/methods).