Wheat Genetics & Genomics
The overall goals of the USDA Small Grain Genotyping Lab in Kansas are to:
- Develop new molecular marker technologies
- Implement effective strategies for their application in breeding for small grain crops
- Provide breeders the access to sophisticated and state of the art molecular technologies
- Maximize the efficiency of small grain breeding programs to speed up the process of new cultivar release. Outputs of the research program are to apply DNA marker information in breeding for small grain crops to accelerate breeding process and to identify novel molecular markers and genes for small grain crop improvement.
The specific objectives are to:
- Maximize the efficiency of plant breeding programs by refinement and application of high-throughput DNA marker-assisted selection (MAS) technology, resulting in the early release of superior germplasm and cultivars
- Develop new and robust molecular markers associated with resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses and end use quality in wheat
- Fingerprint a core set of cultivars and their parents with SSR markers to develop molecular marker profiles for these cultivars, which will be cross-linked to other genetic information currently available in other USDA databases
- Exploit new technologies such as microarray for gene discovery and selection in breeding programs
- Provide training and consultation on marker analysis to breeders and other scientists
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