Location: Cereal Crops Improvement Research
Project Number: 3060-21000-046-048-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 1, 2026
End Date: Jul 31, 2027
Objective:
1) Determine if the 2H QTL associated with variation in early root development also impacts root development during grain fill
2) Determine the allelic variation and deployment of the 5H QTL related to root development
3) Determine if delayed senescence also occurs in roots and cost/benefits
4) Characterize candidate genes related to these root QTLs
5) Deploy appropriate alleles into MT germplasm
Approach:
Approaches will include - testing NILs in various environments utilizing normal field and greenhouse practices, observing roots at various stages of development, high-throughput phenotyping, biparental mapping, GWAS, gene sequencing, qPCR and transcriptomics