Project Number: 5402-21000-007-20
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jul 01, 2012
End Date: Jun 30, 2017

Objective:
Develop new methods for high through-put phenotyping of root system architectural diversity for drought tolerance in rice and corn. Relate field data to imaging of roots in a laboratory or genebank setting for germplasm characterization.

Approach:
Screen ~200 accessions of core and mini core rice accessions adapted to arid areas. Characterize yield, relative growth rate and characteristics associated with drought tolerance and water use efficiency. A portion of the accessions that will be tested are part of the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) collection while others are part of new collections from outside the U.S. This work will be done at the Limited Irrigation Research Farm (LIRF) in Greeley, Colorado. LIRF offers a uniquely instrumented facility to conduct research that requires good control of available plant water and monitoring of plant water use to better understand plant traits and whole plant strategies related to drought tolerance. We will specifically include belowground measurements of plant growth, morphology and physiology in addition to shoot and whole plant measurements. These traits from field experiments will be correlated to laboratory measurements of root growth.