DEVELOPMENT OF GENE-BASED BREEDING (GBB) FOR CROPS OF AGRICULTURAL IMPORTANCE

The goals of this hatch project are to develop gene-based breeding (GBB) systems in crops important to Texas and U.S. agricultural production, with an emphasis on maize and cotton. In the past period of my hatch project, we have developed GBB for maize inbred and hybrid grain yield breeding and GBB for cotton fiber length breeding using individual breeding populations developed from bi-parental crosses. In this period of the project, we will particularly accomplish the following three research objectives:To enhance and extend the GBB system developed for maize inbred and hybrid breeding by integrated analysis of maize diverse inbred lines representing the gene pool and diversity of the U.S. public maize breeding programs;To demonstrate the utility and efficiency of the GBB system for enhnaced and accelerated breeding in maize through developing super-high-yielding hybrids by GBB that are competitive for commercial production in Texas and beyond; andTo enhance and extend the GBB system developed for enhanced breeding in cotton through integrated analysis of cotton cultivars, breeding lines and germplasm lines that are widely used in the U.S. cotton breeding programs. The completed project will result in enhanced GBBs that are suitable for enhanced and accelerated breeding for specific and across environments and for specific and across populations in different U.S. breeding programs in maize and cotton. Furthermore, the completed project will also lead to development of the very first group of super-high-yielding maize hybrid varieties by GBB that are competitive for Texas and U.S. maize production. Finally, the methodologies and concepts of GBB will be applicable to enhanced breeding of hybrid and inbred varieties for many other crops and livestock because the genes controlling their agronomic traits can be also genome-wide high-throughput cloned using our gene cloning technology.