Location: Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research
Project Number: 8062-21000-052-016-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2024
End Date: May 31, 2027
Objective:
The objective of this research is to determine the potential impact of enhanced maize cold tolerance on crop yield, resilience, and sustainability in the US Corn Belt under current and future climates (AIMS1 & 2). This is complemented by a gene and allele discovery pipeline that taps into the adaptations found in maize landraces, teosintes, and related species in the Andropogoneae. These adaptations will be dissected genetically, physiologically, and biochemically to nominate candidate gene targets for enhanced cold tolerance and establishment under cold conditions. Leading candidate hypotheses will be evaluated using transgenic and editing technologies (AIMS 3 & 4). By the end of year 3, we should have a clear evaluation of whether there is sufficient genetic/physiological variation in these relatives to have a meaningful impact on applied corn production in the Corn Belt.
Approach:
The Cooperator will focus their research on AIM 3 and 4. The Cooperator will participate in the evaluation of germplasm both in the cold chamber and in the field and will lead the metabolomic profiling of relevant germplasm. In addition, the Cooperator will contribute to the list of candidate genes for transformation and actively participate in the characterization of the effect of promising alleles. The cooperator will help manage germplasm selection and development and collaborate in the generation and analysis of data to identify mechanisms, genomic regions, and genes involved in cold tolerance.
