221-9 Exotic Genes From Teosinte for Improving Grain Quality and Yield In Maize.



Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Henry Gonzalez Convention Center, Hall C, Street Level

Teresa A. Gaus1, Wenwei Xu2, Yingen Xue3, Seth Murray3, W. Paul Williams4, Gary Odvody3 and Thomas Marek3, (1)Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
(2)Texas A&M University, Lubbock, TX
(3)Mail stop 2474, Texas Agrilife Research, College Station, TX
(4)USDA ARS, MISSISSIPPI STATE, MS
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.
See more from this Division: C01 Crop Breeding & Genetics
See more from this Session: Plant Breeding and Genetics Graduate Poster Competition