Exotic Genes From Teosinte for Improving Grain Quality and Yield In Maize.

From the dawn of time farmers have inadvertently eliminated genetic diversity by selecting the only way they knew how, intense phenotypic selection.  Domestication of only phenotypic "valuable" traits has had deleterious effects on the genetic diversity of maize. Advanced molecular breeding techniques are now able to quantify teosinte alleles that are absent from elite maize, possibly identify sources of unique alleles, and through introgression, insert them into maize.  A set of inbred lines were developed by first crossing Zea Mays ssp. mexicana Race Chalco with BSSS, and then three rounds of backcrossing to elite maize lines.  Preliminary data suggest that the test crosses of the teosinte-derived lines have on-par yield performance and significantly lower aflatoxin accumulatin as compared to the commercial hybrids.