CULTIVAR DEVELOPMENT: ACCELERATED INTROGRESSION OF SYNTHETIC HEXAPLOID DERIVED DIVERSITY INTO AN APPLIED HARD WINTER WHEAT BREEDING PROGRAM

The long-term goal of this project is to enhance our knowledge in nitrogen use efficiency for soybean and discover mechanisms involved in nodulation.Considering increase in the world population and climate change, developing high yielding and resilient crops is of vital importance. Most of the plant breeding efforts and programs have focused on the aboveground parts of the plants and the root system has been neglected probably due to its hidden nature. Soybean plants acquire 50-70% of their nitrogen needs via nitrogen fixation. Screening the diverse soybean germplasm collection available at USDA can help us identify accessions with better nodulation and shed lights on the regulatory pathways controlling these traits. Water use efficiency in plants relies heavily on their root structure and there is a need to identify such variations in soybean collections as well. With the root phenotyping platform that we have developed here in TSU and the strong team of scientists in this project, our goal isto identify QTLs responsible for traits associated with RSA and nodule formation. Understanding the molecular pathways involved in nodule formation and RSA can help in developing resilient crops and a more sustainable cropping system.