WITH THE ONSET OF CLIMATE CHANGE, BREEDING CROPS THAT ARE ADAPTED TO FUTURE ENVIRONMENTS IS PARAMOUNT IN MAINTAINING PLANT PRODUCTIVITY. BREEDING A CROP LIKE MAIZE FOR FUTURE ENVIRONMENTS AND MARKETS REQUIRES THAT WE UNDERSTAND HOW ALL 30,000 GENES ARE REGULATED IN THE GENOME. THESE GENES ARE HEAVILY IMPACTED BY NEARLY 350,000 TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS (VIRUS-LIKE SEQUENCES EMBEDDED IN THE GENOME) THAT CONSIST OF 85% OF THE MAIZE GENOME SEQUENCE. THIS PROJECT WILL USE DATA FROM MAIZE AND 1,200 WILD RELATIVES RELATED TO MAIZE, SORGHUM, AND SUGARCANE TO BUILD MODELS THAT QUANTIFY THE AMOUNT THAT TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS IMPACT GENE REGULATION. THESE MODELS CAN THEN BE USED TO DESIGN HIGH-YIELDING MAIZE VARIETIES THAT ARE MORE SUITED TOWARDS NEW ENVIRONMENTS AND CONDITIONS IMPACTING AGRICULTURE.

$141,876FY2022National Institute of Food and AgricultureUSDA

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

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WITH THE ONSET OF CLIMATE CHANGE, BREEDING CROPS THAT ARE ADAPTED TO FUTURE ENVIRONMENTS IS PARAMOUNT IN MAINTAINING PLANT PRODUCTIVITY. BREEDING A CROP LIKE MAIZE FOR FUTURE ENVIRONMENTS AND MARKETS REQUIRES THAT WE UNDERSTAND HOW ALL 30,000 GENES ARE REGULATED IN THE GENOME. THESE GENES ARE HEAVILY IMPACTED BY NEARLY 350,000 TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS (VIRUS-LIKE SEQUENCES EMBEDDED IN THE GENOME) THAT CONSIST OF 85% OF THE MAIZE GENOME SEQUENCE. THIS PROJECT WILL USE DATA FROM MAIZE AND 1,200 WILD RELATIVES RELATED TO MAIZE, SORGHUM, AND SUGARCANE TO BUILD MODELS THAT QUANTIFY THE AMOUNT THAT TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS IMPACT GENE REGULATION. THESE MODELS CAN THEN BE USED TO DESIGN HIGH-YIELDING MAIZE VARIETIES THAT ARE MORE SUITED TOWARDS NEW ENVIRONMENTS AND CONDITIONS IMPACTING AGRICULTURE. · GrantIndex