Project Number: 5325-21000-013-10
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jun 24, 2008
End Date: Jul 31, 2010

Objective:
Grass species including many important cereal and bioenergy crops are integral to U.S. future plans for sustainable food and energy. To meet the increasing demands for food and energy fuel worldwide, it is necessary to develop valuable genomics resource and knowledge that can be directly applied to crop improvement and biofuel research. This project will use genomics and bioinformatics to develop knowledge and resources for cereal and biofuel improvement, including utilizing the new grass model species Brachypodium to search for genes associated with agronomical traits such as grain development and cell wall biosynthesis. Project will enhance data within public databases and connect these data to other relevant data and databases.

Approach:
1) Improve Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of Brachypodium for high-throughput generation of T-DNA tagged mutant population 2) Contribute to the development, maintenance, and distribution of T-DNA tagged mutant plants 3) Molecular and genetic characterization of mutants by directly linking the corresponding genes onto genetic and physical maps of both wheat and Brachypodium, 4) Collaborate in development software tools for processing of data and website to make the data accessible to public. 5) Data collation and curation for inclusion in the GrainGenes database.