Project Number: 3611-21000-022-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Jan 03, 2008
End Date: Jan 02, 2013

Objective:
1) Efficiently and effectively conserve and distribute a comprehensive assemblage of maize genetic stocks and associated information to maize researchers and breeders worldwide. 2) Strategically genotype and phenotype maize genetic stocks for priority traits, and incorporate genotypic and phenotypic data into MaizeGDB, GRIN, and/or other databases.

Approach:
Our mission is to make natural and induced allelic and chromosomal variations available to the scientific community and to make information about the mutant collection available to researchers. The National Plant Germplasm System provides support to selected genetic stock centers having genetic resources of value to U.S. agricultural interests. The Maize Genetics Cooperation - Stock Center maintains important accessions of morphological and physiological markers, aneuploid material, translocations and inversions that are important tools in biological research. This project will increase the value of the stock collection as genetic tools and confirm the status of novel mutants discovered. Maize mutants have historically been used in gene discovery and will continue to be used in this way. New mapping tools in our collection will allow easier identification of genomic sequence underlying a phenotype. More recently, novel genes are being identified purely by sequence analyses. This will excel in the next few years with the release of the maize genome sequence. Identification of the functions for these newly identified genes can be determined by researchers with reverse genetics resources in our collection.