PLANT SHAPE OR ARCHITECTUREIS CRITICAL TOINCREASEPRODUCTIVITY,OPTIMIZE INPUTS, ANDACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONSTO MEET NATIONAL DEMANDS FOR HUMAN AND ANIMAL NUTRITION. IDEAL PLANT ARCHITECTURE SAFEGUARDS AGAINST LOSSES DUE TO ABIOTIC STRESSES SUCH AS LODGING AND OPTIMIZES YIELD PER ACRE VIA LIGHT INTERCEPTION AND PLANT DENSITY. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH TARGETS TWO IMPORTANT COMPONENTS OF PLANT ARCHITECTURE, PLANT HEIGHT AND LEAF ANGLE, THAT ARECONTRIBUTORS TO YIELD MAXIMIZATION IN MAIZE.THE PROPOSED RESEARCH WILL IDENTIFY NOVEL GENES THAT CAN MODIFY THESE TRAITS.THE FINDINGS OF THIS STUDY WILL BE PUBLISHED IN PEERREVIEWED AND OPEN-ACCESS JOURNALS. THE DATA GENERATED FROM ALL THE EXPERIMENTS WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO THEPUBLIC THROUGH DATA REPOSITORIES.THE MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION OF GENES CONTROLLING PLANT HEIGHT AND LEAF ANGLE WILL HELP IN THEIR DETECTION IN OTHER MAPPING FRAMEWORKS AND COULD BE USED BYMAIZE BREEDERS TO DEVELOP IMPROVED MAIZE GERMPLASM.

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators