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

主要研究者：Jonathan Lynch（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）共同项目负责人：Kathleen Brown（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）、Shawn Kaeppler（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）、乔治Kanyama-Phiri（马拉维邦达农学院）高级人员：Moses Maliro（马拉维邦达农学院）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对这些地区的粮食安全作出重要贡献。该项目的总体目标是确定具有扩展根皮层通气组织（RCA）特征的玉米品种并对其进行表征，这已被证明可以增强从土壤中获取水分和养分。 该项目将描述来自美国和非洲玉米种质的RCA性状的生理表型，绘制RCA性状的遗传图谱，并通过田间试验站和农场试验评估南部非洲选定的玉米品种。 在非洲进行的这种农业生态学研究将评估RCA性状与养分获取、养分径向运输、菌根定殖和对根病原体的易感性之间的潜在相互作用。除了干旱，RCA还可以增强对限制土壤养分如磷和氮的获取。界定和了解增强耐旱性的性状对发展中国家的小农农业至关重要。该项目将提供生理验证的表型性状，种质资源和分子标记，可应用于玉米耐旱育种计划。 该项目包括与非洲和拉丁美洲的植物育种者合作，以确保将成果联系起来并转让给小农。在培训方面，将为宾夕法尼亚州立大学和威斯康星州大学的本科生课程编写非洲农业案例研究。项目成果可通过美国农业部农业研究所国家植物种质系统（http：//www.ars-grin.gov/npgs）、玉米遗传学和基因组学数据库MaizeGDB（http：www.maizegdb.org）和一个以英文、法文、葡萄牙文和西班牙文提供的育种者外联网站（http：//www.example.com）roots.psu.edu/? q=en/方法）。

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).