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Danforth gets grant for improving corn yields

A research grant from the National Science Foundation is going to fund a project aimed at improving corn yields. The $3.4 Million-dollar grant goes to the Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, one of the world’s leading independent plant science institutes.

Project lead, Dr. Andrea Eveland, tells Brownfield Ag News hybrid corn has greatly increased yields but those techniques have basically maxed out, “So, what we’re really trying to do with this grant is to leverage more advanced genomic approaches and genetics-based tools to try to identify new regions of the genome that can improve maize leaf angle as well as tassle traits.”

She says those traits are highly connected. Breeding for upright leaves allows light within the lower canopy while the structure of the tassle improves seed set, grain fill and harvestability, “We’re trying to understand, with this grant, is to understand at the molecular level how these traits can be manipulated so farmers can optimize those traits to their condition of choice.”

Eveland is joined by Alexander Lipka with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and two professors with the University of California in the team research.

The corn yield project will include educational curriculum in quantitative genetics and genomics in high schools and rural community colleges.