Location: Plant Science Research
Project Number: 6070-21220-017-015-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 18, 2025
End Date: Sep 17, 2027
Objective:
The goal of the Germplasm Enhancement of Maize (GEM) project is to increase the genetic resiliency of corn being grown by US farmers through the development of agronomically superior semi-exotic germplasm. Yield and disease evaluations must be conducted in order to identify this superior germplasm, and this funding will help support these evaluations.
Approach:
1) The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Official Variety Testing (OVT) program will plant yield trials with seed supplied by researchers in the USDA-ARS Plant Science Research Unit's corn project. The yield trials will be planted at four locations in the state of North Carolina. The GEM project will supply between 500 and 750 yield trial entries per year. Yield trials will be planted with one replication per location and machine-harvested to collect yield and moisture data.
2) Disease trials will also be planted to with a goal of determining the correlation of disease resistance between the inbreds and their respective hybrids; these trials will be planted at several locations in North Carolina and will be inoculated with a single disease at each location.
3) GEM-derived and other southern-US adapted germplasm in the Genomes-to-Fields trials will be analyzed for genotype x environment interactions to determine if this material has superior performance in southern environments as compared with Corn-Belt adapted germplasm.
Data from all three approaches will be shared between USDA-ARS and other collaborating members of the GEM project and will be used in selection of germplasm to be released and for the potential adaptation of new protocols to the GEM project.