Maize (Zea mays)
Maize belongs to the Poaceae family and performs C4 photosynthesis. It is the third most important grain crop world-wide after wheat and rice. Scientific evidence suggest a single domestication event of maize in southern Mexico around 9000 years ago.
In 2018 in the EU 67.4 million tonnes of maize grain was produced (4th largest production region globally, statista.com). A further 229 million tonnes of ‘green’ maize (Eurostat) was harvested as an energy rich feed for livestock.
Target production increases of 10% due to enhanced photosynthesis have been estimated to increase value by up to €18 billion.
The maize collections for characterisation within CAPITALISE include:
MAIZE-MPP
(provider SSSA) a multi-parental population (MPP) built by the intercross of eight diverging parental lines resulting in recombinant inbred lines (RILs) harnessing high diversity and high recombination frequency; Recombinant intercrosses (RIXs), a set of heterozygous genotypes deriving from the intercross of RILs, will be produced and used within the project.
MAIZE-PHOTO
(provider IPK) a set of 10 maize lines with contrasting photosynthesis traits already well characterized for photosynthetic performance and induction kinetics and with sequencing-based markers.
MAIZE-MU
(Provider CEA) 6,000 mutants, with insertions identified by Mu-Illumina sequencing from the Barkan Lab. US http://pml.uoregon.edu/.
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Crop breeding
Barley
