IMPROVING QUINOA PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH THE USE OF WILD RELATIVES AND INDUCED VARIATION

The overall goal of this project is to produce new genetic variation that can be used to improve quinoa production domestically and internationallyObjective 1. Development and distribution of interspecific populations capturing natural diversity from wild relatives. This will involve assessing the genetic and phenotypic diversity in our set of ~200 C. berlandieri accessions, selecting 10 representative accessions for crossing with quinoa, advancing the resulting populations, and distributing the populations to domestic and international collaborators.2. Development and analysis of an induced mutant population for quinoa. This will involve treating quinoa seeds with the chemical mutagen EMS, advancing the mutant lines to the M3 generation, and sequencing mutant lines to identify mutations.3. Outreach to promote use of the enhance germplasm. This will involve creating a public database of genetic and phenotypic information from quinoa and interspecific crosses, and hosting a genomics workshop to teach necessary genomics analysis skills to potential users of our materials.