Location: Grain Quality and Structure Research
Project Number: 3020-30600-002-039-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: May 26, 2026
End Date: May 25, 2029
Objective:
The objective is to 1) characterize key germplasm pools for novel quality aspects of macro and micro and functional nutritional attributes, 2) advance high throughput methods to quantify and measure grain quality attributes for sorghums, and 3) apply improved methods and bioinformatic data on grain quality to develop quality trait sorghums to improve profitability and grain marketing of sorghums in local and regional markets.
Approach:
The PI Sexton-Bowser will leverage the Sorghum Trait (STRAIT) Coordination Innovation Network (KIN) community of public and private sorghum breeders to facilitate screening of quality attributes in key germplasm pools to include breeding materials and shared community mapping association collections. Target germplasm to screen will be prioritized based on 1) state of germplasm development for rapid development and adoption and 2) widely used germplasm collections for broad applicability of phenotypes across the community of breeding and genetic programs. Sorghum quality phenotypes will be obtained utilizing Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. Grain samples will be scanned utilizing a benchtop instrument. Further, these calibrations will be assessed to confirm maintained accuracy and precision in new populations.
This data will be leveraged with the STRAIT KIN network to accelerate application of phenotypic data into genomic predictive models including bioinformatics for prediction of causal genetics and integrating data into genomic prediction models. These models will be trained and cross validated with observed data and ortholog and pangenome information. Findings from this work will be transferred to breeding and genetic cohorts including public and private sorghum breeding groups with direct meetings between programs and broader public presentation at sorghum research meetings.