Project Number: 3625-21000-050-04
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Apr 27, 2004
End Date: Mar 31, 2009

Objective:
Develop temperate adapted, 50% tropical families and inbreds with good yield potential, adaptation, and disease resistance including fusarium and associated mycotoxins, grey leafspot, and southern leaf blight. Continue to focus on maize racial accessions that have potential for scientific study of allelic diversity. Make germplasm available to GEM cooperators to enhance and broaden germplasm base.

Approach:
The work represents one year of a multi-year family structure development, testing, and disease evaluation effort. Families are developed by selfing in the nursery under disease pressure. Top cross seed is produced of the better families with desirable phenotypes. GEM collaborators assist with conducting trials by providing in kind support in states in the southeast and southern Midwest cornbelt. The lines corresponding to the best top cross entries are crossed to a second tester and the best families are routinely screened for resistance in disease trials. New racial accessions crossed in winter nursery to expired PVP lines will be further selected and pollinated in the nursery.