Progress 05/01/19 to 08/02/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this fellowship are researchers applyinggenetics of plant architecture and stress tolerance to breeding in cereals. New technology capabilities at CSU developed though the funding of my fellowship will continue to accelerate research at that institution. My outreach efforts at Platte Valley High School have positively impacted teachers and students. Changes/Problems:Field work during the funding period was curtailed in 2020 due to COVID-19. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Through the fellowship, I have developed a strong understanding and competency in experimental design and statistical analysis. This has been both through regular consultation with my mentor and my participation in the Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics. I presented my work at CSU seminars and conferences and workshops (NCSU Plant Breeding 2020, Plant Biology 2020). I contributed to development and writing of USDA, NSF, and DOE grant submissions. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?During this project I have mentored two undergraduate students, each of whom had no previous experience with genetic analysis and plant phenotyping. In addition, I worked with students at Platte Valley High School on projects. I presented my work to Bioenergy and Bioeconomy groups and participated in the ARPAe Annual Summit. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
I identified sorghum varieties that have modulate tiller growthin response to drought. While most genotypes have fewer developed tillers under water-limitation, I also identified types that produce more tillers under these conditions. Mapping populations containing these different responders are available and may allow for genetic dissection of this plasticity. I identified and genotyped sorghum lines with mutations in a nutrient transporter that appears to influence tiller growth and development. These will be phenotyped in the field under both well-watered and water-limited treatments. I collected data on root architecture phenotypes of diverse sorghum genotypes under differential irrigation.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Heun, J.T.; Attalah, S.; French, A.N.; Lehner, K.R.; McKay, J.K.; Mullen, J.L.; Ottman, M.J.; Andrade-Sanchez, P.
Deployment of Lidar from a Ground Platform: Customizing a Low-Cost, Information-Rich and User-Friendly Application for
Field Phenomics Research. Sensors 2019, 19, 5358.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Mon-Ray Shao, Ni Jiang, Mao Li, Anne Howard, Kevin Lehner, Jack L. Mullen, Shayla L. Gunn, John K. McKay, Christopher N Topp.
Complementary Phenotyping of Maize Root Architecture by Root Pulling Force and X-Ray Computed Tomography
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Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences for this project include breeders interested in identifying targets for drought tolerance in sorghum and maize. Changes/Problems:My field season plans for 2020 were significantly impaired due to COVID issues and protocols. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?I directly mentored two undergraduate students who participated in research projects. I attended the virtual Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics in 2020. I attended two virtual conferences and gave a talk at one. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I gave a talk to a Bioenergy and Bioeconomy group at CSU. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I am planning a field study in Summer 2021 to perform genetic mapping of tillering and drought response in sorghum.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During the COVID-impaired year, I identified sorghum lines that differ in their propensity to produce tillers. I generated genetic mapping populations from these lines. In addition, I generated a core data set that shows a range tiller growth and development in response to drought.
Publications
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Progress 05/01/19 to 04/30/20
Outputs
Target Audience:This work impacts breeders who are interested in controlling tiller growth to optimize sorghum yield in marginal environments. Technology and research infrastructure developed though the funding of my fellowship will help facilitate research at CSU. My outreach efforts at Platte Valley High School have positively impacted teachers and students. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the last reporting session I have given a talk as part of the CSU Plant Supergroup. I have presented posters at the 2020 Front Range Ecology Student Symposium and the 2020 North Carolina State University Plant Breeding Symposium. In addition, I have attended the 2020 Cornell University Plant Breeding Symposium and the 2020 Genetics Society of America Meeting. I have gained experience by mentoring two PhD students and a postbac student. I have also been working directly with a pair of high school FFA students on a research project. I assisted with the development and writing of a DOE grant proposal focused on optimizing bioenergy sorghum production in marginal lands such as those in dryland Colorado. I led a demonstration of ourphenotyping facility and greenhouses to participants in the 2020 Bioenergy and Bioeconomy Conference held in Fort Collins. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I hostedanopen houseat CSU to promote and demonstrate the phenotyping technologies that I have been developing. In addition, I presented my work at the 2019 ARPA-e Summit in Denver, highlighting my progress. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the previous reporting period, I have prepared seeds for extensive experiments in the current period. I have populations ready to identify genes that control tillering in sorghum. I will do this using image-based phenotyping and high-throughput sequencing. These mutants will be evaluated under both well-watered and water-limited conditions. I have identified a set of related sorghum lines that I will use to characterize patterns of gene expression underlying tiller emergence and elongation. Two of these produce multiple tillers in growth chamber conditions, while tillers are suppressed in the other. I will isolate a time series of tiller buds from these three lines and perform RNA-seq on the samples. The same analysis will be done in well-watered and water-limited conditions. This will characterize the temporal dynamics of tiller emergence and elongation and the effect of drought on this process.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting I have developed the technical foundations upon which to explore the genetics of tiller development. I have set up and optimized a system for imaging plant growth from multiple angles. From the resulting images, I am able to accurately measure rates of main shoot and tiller elongation rates and associated leaf area over time. These improvements will allow me to identify genetic variants that control sorghum tillering. I have obtained seeds from a few sorghum populations and increased them for doing large-scale experimentsstarting in the summer of 2020. These include mapping populations for two different tillering mutants and a set of diverse germplasm for exploring the dynamics of tiller formation and elongation under drought in the field in Colorado. Additionally, I have begun to assess root system architecture traits in sorghum. I measured root pulling force and achitecture using image-based phenotyping in a diverse set of germplasm in Scottsbluff, Nebraska in summer 2019. I observed substantial phenotypic variation among these lines.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Poster Presentation NCSU Plant Breeding Symposium: "To Branch or Not to Branch: Image-based Phenotyping of Tiller Formation in Sorghum and Maize"
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Poster Presentation Front Range Student Ecology Symposium: "A Shared Imaging and Analysis Center to Accelerate Plant Root Ecological Research at CSU"
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Heun, J.T.; Attalah, S.; French, A.N.; Lehner, K.R.; McKay, J.K.; Mullen, J.L.; Ottman, M.J.; Andrade-Sanchez, P. Deployment of Lidar from a Ground Platform: Customizing a Low-Cost, Information-Rich and User-Friendly Application for Field Phenomics Research. Sensors 2019, 19, 5358.
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