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PI: Kathleen Brown（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：Moses Maliro（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鉴定和鉴定具有扩展根皮质通气组织（RCA）性状的玉米品种，该性状已被证明能提高土壤中水分和养分的获取。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，并通过田间站和农场试验评估非洲南部选定的玉米品种。这种在非洲进行的农业生态学研究将评估潜在的RCA性状与养分获取、径向养分运输、菌根定植和对根病原体的易感性之间的相互作用。除了干旱之外，RCA还可以提高磷和氮等限制性土壤养分的获取。确定和了解增强抗旱能力的性状对发展中国家的小农农业具有重要意义。该项目将提供经生理验证的表型性状、种质资源和分子标记，可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，确保与小农建立联系并将成果转移给小农。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课程编写非洲农业个案研究。获取项目成果项目成果将通过USDA-ARS国家植物种质系统（http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs）、玉米遗传和基因组学数据库MaizeGDB （http://www.maizegdb.org）以及一个提供英语、法语、葡萄牙语和西班牙语的育种者推广网站（http://roots.psu.edu/?q=en/methods）进行访问。

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).